About This Game Cultist Simulator is a game of apocalypse and yearning from Alexis Kennedy, creator of Fallen London and Sunless Sea. Play as a seeker after unholy mysteries, in a 1920s-themed setting of hidden gods and secret histories. Perhaps you're looking for knowledge, or power, or beauty, or revenge. Perhaps you just want the colours beneath the skin of the world.In this roguelike narrative card game, what you find may transform you forever. Every choice you make, from moment to moment, doesn't just advance the narrative - it also shapes it.Become a scholar of the unseen arts. Search your dreams for sanity-twisting rituals. Craft tools and summon spirits. Indoctrinate innocents. Seize your place as the herald of a new age.In this 20-40 hour game, you'll:Combine cards to tell your own story in a rich, Lovecraftian world of ambition, appetite and abomination. Corrupt your friends. Consume your enemies. There is never only one history.Found a cult, dedicated to the Red Grail, or the Witch-and-Sister, or the Forge of Days. Recruit Believers and promote them to Disciples to serve as burglars, researchers, cat's-paws. Use your disciples to keep you fed - or feed on your disciples.Unravel arcane, unacknowledged mysteries. Translate grimoires and glean their lore. Locate and pillage the Star Shattered Fane. Penetrate the realm of the Hours, and win a place in their service. Perhaps - if you are very cunning - you may even glimpse the Mansus.Outwit rivals, investigators and the increasingly suspicious Authorities. Your own altered Appetites may force you to act abominably, but your Cause must not be stopped.Transcend death with a story-driven legacy system. Perhaps your inheritors will complete the Rite of the Crucible Soul. Perhaps they'll find peace in a pleasing career. Perhaps they'll bring the Dawn.Twitter: @factoryweather, @alexiskennedy, @tronbevanFacebook: here!Instagram: here!Reddit: here!Discord: channel here, invite link here 1075eedd30 Title: Cultist SimulatorGenre: Indie, RPG, SimulationDeveloper:Weather FactoryPublisher:Humble BundleFranchise:Secret HistoriesRelease Date: 31 May, 2018 Cultist Simulator Download No Password Do you like spinning plates? This is a game about spinning plates, dressed up as a Lovecraft inspired cult "simulator".I'll keep this brief: The compelling aspect of building a cult didn't last long for me. It was quickly drowned out by the mundane drudgery of performing my daily job just to earn enough money to keep myself fed so I wouldn't die. Beyond that, I kept falling into "despair", pulling what few coin I had into medication so I could keep myself from committing suicide. Yes, that might sound in-line with Lovecraftian horror, being so horrified of unfathomable truths that you can't keep your sanity, but that's not what's happening: My character is merely trying to live down a minimum wage job with no hope of promotion. I ALREADY GET THAT IN REAL LIFEThere's only a small hint that mentions "dealing" with my boss somehow, but when you're on the other side of the table trying to play the REAL game you don't have time, knowledge, or resources to even begin questioning how to do that. On the cult-side of the game, I'll need money to peruse the library for forbidden lore and cosmic secrets, but UH OH, I only have 2 coins left, and one is going to medication for my impending despair\/disease I contracted from not eating enough food, and the other is going toward eating food.Simultaneously, I'm spinning a different plate trying to recruit followers that I'm not sure what to do with, another plate where I'm trying to figure out how my dreams can help unlock eldritch insights (when I'm not using this slot to recover from despair and disease), spinning another plate where I'm exploring the city for some other lead that can help me progress the game in some way (or if I have a spare coin, searching a bookstore for new lore to help me), spinning another plate to try and study the books\/lore I've discovered, spinning another plate where a detective's on my trail and I have to keep him occupied by trying to bribe or kill him (in my case, unsuccessfully), and then I'm sitting there with a certain kind of "goal" card that I know I have to use at some point but I CAN'T because the slot I need to use said goal on is being occupied by the aforementioned mundane job that--if I put on hold for even a minute--I get demoted in, making the mundane element of trying not to starve even MORE prominent. There's a heavy time-related element that brings inherent stress to this game. If you're the kind of person who loves micromanagement, you might like this game. I could specifically see someone who loves Starcraft (or similar RTS's) liking this game. I, personally, don't enjoy micromanagement, especially when it doesn't actually have anything to do with the central focus of the game. It seemed really interesting to me at first glance, but it ended up only frustrating and annoying me.. "Mess up with your friends simulator" but real tho... this game is mercyless and hella fun, If you have a nice imagination this will also fill in for your own told stories from you game runs, its like you start building the lore about whats going on while you name the runs as your friends, so many terrible TERRIBLE stories tho XD Im loving. I absolutely adore this game. From its looks, to the music to the gameplay, everything about it is both enticing, occult and addictive. Unlike most game, then progression is done through your knowledge on how to play the game. Learning IS the game. The more you know, the easier it gets. But even if you do manage to beat the game, after countless deaths in the hands of despair, sickness or agents trying to stop you, the game still holds more mysteries and challenges. -----PRO : - Graphic design. We can definitely recognize style from Fallen London or Sunless Sea. It's dark, it's mysterious, it's simple.- Music and sounds. They're rather quiet and despite hearing the same handful of soundtracks, they add to the atmosphere without getting boring. But some of them will give you the chills every time.- Gameplay. The game is a card game where you use cards on Verbs, which are actions such as Talk, Work, Dream and such. The gameplay in itself is fairly simple, but knowing what to do and NOT to do is the key. Experimenting and making mistakes will teach you how to go a bit further with every new game.-----CON : - RNG. This is a personal one. The game is heavily RNG based, where most of your actions can fail with more or less chances of success depending of your choices. But even if you make the best choices, there is still a chance of failure. And sometimes, failure can cost you a lot. Even if you play perfectly, a bad streak of luck can get you killed. Some of these events can be avoided or fixed, but a couple cannot and that is, to my personal opinion, very frustrating. Especially considering how often these events show up later on. - Story. Both a pro and a con, but I'm leaning more toward con for that one. The lore and universe is complex, fascinated and very well told, However, you get to learn the lore bit by bit in a very chaotic way. Making sense of it is very difficult, unless you take notes outside of the game. I personally checked the Wiki after my first victory to understand what all of these books talked about. I'd personally appreciate being able to review what you've read before, but I can see how it would ruin the whole mysterious and occult side of the game. Again, more of a personal one. -----Overall, it's a very solid game with a decent replayability, hours worth of content (One game is roughly 15-20 hours if you make sure to get everything) and a challenging difficulty which, while it can be frustrating with all the RNG, also feel just right. 10\/10, would ascend again.. Note that it says Cultist Simulator. Be very clear, the time cost and learning curve are pretty close to *actually* starting your own Lovecraftian cult."In this 20-40 hour game"... That's fair. 42 hours of play for my first non-early-out victory. That was three sub-hour deaths, one "Retired as an accountant" (literally) sort-of-victory, and culminating in a 38-hour ascension victory taking my somewhat-lazy detective down into the depths of the hidden world, and up to the peak of the Mansus, before rejecting his beloved, shedding his mortal flesh and becoming something... greater. An hour before the end of that game, I was 10 seconds from a party wipe, desperately clawing at every RNG I could reach. The Hours smiled upon me that time.I strongly recommend going into this one cold. A *lot* of the joy comes from figuring out the card-game mechanics, exploring the clues you can assemble from the limited systemic hints (i.e. card slots are limited by category, but not every card in a category works in every slot that accepts it) and just generally trying to survive while juggling a job, a cult, competing cultists, romance, occult research, the occasional nosy police inspector, and the more-frequent-than-expected blood sacrifices.Seriously, I feel like in the end-game, I was kidnapping and sacrificing one or two people a week. The other ascension routes may be less blood-sacrifice heavy, but I suspect they're not. You're not on the side of law-and-order here, and no one ascends to immortality with clean hands.The first few losses will be quick, and like many solitaire card games, not every hand is winnable, and there's no protection against backing yourself into a corner. It's not a single-player adventure game that wants you to win, nor is it a narrative game for you to follow a story through. It's a card game with mechanics for you to learn, employ, and exploit.Each loss does teach you something more about the game. Even my first victory has taught me a lot that will help in future: easier ways to do things I did the hard-way, better choices I could make to have my synergies going in the same direction, whole subsystems I had overlooked, a clearer understanding of some of the rules and how the RNG affects them, etc.The interface is super-minimal, which makes sense for a card game. You move cards onto "verbs" to do things, sometimes verbs will take cards for you (whether you want them to or not), and the spacebar is your (only true) friend. It's basically the opposite of an idle-game: It does nothing on your behalf, you can't leave it alone unpaused for a single minute, and time passing is your greatest enemy. Apostle mode suggests that other immortals are your worst enemy, but I'm not there yet so have no opinion on that.It's worth checking the Options menu when you first start, as I saw a few negative reviews about things that are options you can turn on, such as high contrast mode for making card easier to read, and how long the popups stay open if you don't click to close them. What on earth is the Bird\/Worm option?The only major problem I have with the game is the autosave locks up the UI for a few seconds, and tends to lose clicks and key-presses that happened during that time, while the clock continues. It's always quite jarring, and seems to happen every 30 seconds or so.It's actually set to 5 minutes by default, but it always *feels* like it's only been 30 seconds since the last auto-save...It's also possible to click on the table *under* moving things, moving the game world around instead of the card if you get there too quickly, even though the card is highlighted. It's doubly-frustrating when you do that, and the auto-save kicks in, so you get a five-second pause, followed by flinging the table across the screen.I had actually bought the Perpetual Edition of this game somewhat on a whim, but didn't get around to playing it until a fortnight ago, taking a break from Hitman 2 before possibly returning to Monster Hunter: World. Now I have to decide if I want to take a break from this game, for either of the above.. Breaks down very complex interactions into a system designed to give me weird dreams. I was so absorbed in the game that when the fascination card popped it represented me. When my longest running character died I died. I haven\u2019t played since, don\u2019t know why it messed with me so much but it really is something special. This is a game where the Goal and the Point are two different things. Your Goal is to ascend to power in whatever way you have available. The Point is to figure out how to play. If you're just playing this game to get to the ending, then you're literally missing the Point. Figuring out the game *is* the game... and I love it. I have a lot of fiddly hobbies that you figure out through trial and error, and this game fits right into that mindset.. Elegant, eerie, innovative and incredibly addictive game. But it as wondrous as it is MERCILESS, so be warned:Even if you overcome the mounting frustration of figuring out its obscure mechanics (obviously an intended admission fee and part of the charm of the game), it's still going to take you an insane amount of time and effort to complete the higher ascensions, which in my opinion are the real icing on the cake.But if you do manage to muster the patience and willpower to master this challenge, I guarantee this is one of the best games you're ever going to play!. I have seen a lot of bad reviews for this game. Most of them go along the lines of, there is no tutorial, i do not know what i am supposed to do. Most of these reviews are rather recent, older reviews are rather positive in comparison. I am pretty sure this is due to the fact that this is a niche game with purposefully cryptic game mechanics. This is the game with the steepest learning curve i have ever played, and its not for everybody i am sure. The recent negative reviews are because the game has been getting traction with the non-niche players, who do not enjoy this kind of game.I recommend this game highly to those who like steep learning curves and who enjoy Lovecraftian\/Occult horror and the like.This is a Niche-Game, if i have ever seen one. Not all will enjoy this game, and that will not change ever.One of my favorite games ever.P.S.: Just noticed this game has a Disclaimer that it has no Tutorial. So to those who complain about no Tutorial, try reading.. Unique and beautifully written exploration card game. Lovecraftian in the best sense, one of my games of the year 2018.
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