Cultist Simulator
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.
Cultist Simulator Review
The pleasure in this game is finally figuring things out. The irritation is also figuring those things out. You fail, and you start anew. And then in the very next profession – if you choose another – things have changed. So there’s more to figure out. In this it becomes very time consuming. It also brings a ton of replayability along with it as well. You either find it relaxing, or frustrating, or both – just like me.
It’s hard for me to compare it to another game I’ve played. It’s a solo-card-table-top-RPG-of-trial-and-error, filled with riddles, and lore that honestly seems like it doesn’t make sense half the time. And recipe memorization, only your cooking up an alien God. Lives up to being Lovecraftian at least. I’d say if you like in depth card games, you’ll love it. If you like puzzles in a riddle sense, you might like it. No guarantees there. Story driven games? Also a big maybe. All of these things? Then you’ll probably enjoy it, or at the very least appreciate it for what it is.
If I have any words of caution, it’s that there is no tutorial. You’re on your own. The Wiki and other online searches even after a basic understanding of the game may just serve to confuse you more. I think it took me a good 5-6 hours to get what I consider to be the basics of surviving and manifesting cards down at that. So if you buy this game, be prepared to honestly figure things out for yourself, with the occasional Google, that a quarter of the time may not help anyway. If I was able to figure it out though, so can you.
And one last thing, never purge your save. Just don’t do it. To say why is a spoiler, and Cultist Simulator is not about spoilers.