Tom: “I beseech you, turn off that stream right now. You have gone far enough, already seen too much. Please, the things you would see cannot be unseen. You can still turn back. I would not wish on you the same fate as mine.”
How Lovecraftian.
Well, I didn’t mean my stream! The streaming I did, linked upthread, is specifically spoiler-free. It’s basically just me explaining how the cool the game is, but that I can’t actually show you the cool stuff, but here’s the kind of things you’ll being doing to get to the cool stuff, and it’s really cool, but I’m not going to show it to you.
But, yeah, I wouldn’t want to screw up for anyone the gratifying “ah-ha!” as you discover how things work. That should be experienced personally rather than vicariously.
-Tom
Out today. It’s getting good reviews, but better than that…
"Buy in the first week to get Perpetual Edition, granting free DLC for life!
We’ll release DLC after launch with new roles, characters and legacies, most likely starting with new Priest and Dancer roles.
Perpetual Edition will be removed from sale, NEVER TO RETURN, at 7PM BST on Thursday 7th June 2018."
I assume that applies to early purchasers off itch.io as well.
Get yer la la’s out.
Good. I needed an excuse to buy this on day 1.
Available: May 31
This game will unlock in approximately less than an hour
I watched some footage of this one and it seems really cool, but both videos started exactly the same. Is this more of a linear story than a “rogue like”? Is it even considered a rogue like/lite or am I just inserting what I think it is into the gameplay I watched?
Not a roguelike. My understanding is that replayability comes from the dozens (hundreds?) of possible card combinations, all yielding different results. The first few minutes are always the same, but that’s about it.
Ah, okay that makes sense given all the possible sub-cards (?) you can play onto … events? Whatever they are called. Like playing something on your job and getting a promotion.
It seems like a super cool game, for sure, and I would grab it in a heart beat but I spent all my gaming cash on a visit to the ER last night (scratched my cornea, great fun).
The start of your first few play throughs may be the same but you unlock new starting characters which change things up.
A warning that this looks REALLY unstable on Mac currently so buy at your own risk.
I’ve played maybe half hour through to starting your first cult & the game crashes repeatedly and reproducibly when collecting the resulting cards. Have fooled with resolutions, video card being used, etc and no change.
Hopefully they’ll get this fixed soonish because it seems like an interesting game.
Diego
Is this the type of game where you can figure things out and play strategically because you have enough info to make informed choices, or is this more of a learn by trial and error game?
“Trial and error” is part of the experience, although a less loaded way to put that would be “experiment”. It’s not going to let you do things that don’t do anything, so it’s not like you’re spinning your wheels figuring out what to do.
I like to think of it as a “learn by reading cool text” game.
-Tom
I didn’t mean anything negative by trial and error. I tend to like things where I feel that I have the info to make an informed choice so I just wanted to make that distinction. For example, playing a new 4X where I can get a feel for how the different resources are earned and spent and then make an educated decision on what would be best.
Is Cultist Simulator more like building a narrative by choosing things that just feel right thematically? More like roleplaying choices rather than trying to min / max them?
Absolutely the former. Don’t let the cards fool you. It is not really a strategy game or a resource management game. It’s a narrative.
-Tom
Thanks Tom.
For what it’s worth, I love it to pieces, and I bet you’d like it. It does require some patience, though. I’ll have a review up over the weekend. The only reason I haven’t written up a review yet is because I’ve been playing it so much. Steam says I have something like 40 hours logged, although I’m sure some of this is just leaving it paused while doing other stuff.
-Tom
After reading the reviews (and Tom’s earlier comments) I just had to buy it immediately, I don’t think that has happened with a game for a long time.
I got a Steam coupon for 10% off! Yay!
The coupon doesn’t work. Boo!
I lose 4 sanity points.
Oh, man. The time management part of this reminds me a lot of the feeling I get in a good Offworld Trading Company session.
Cthulhu isn’t the most dangerous enemy here. It’s “Time Passes” that kills you.
It’s fascinating.
Sadly, like Sunless Sea before it, for two games so focused on reading, the inability to customize the way the fonts are displayed and the way a lot of the text is barely readable at resolutions lower than 1080p is really strange.
No such issue here, but I am using an older OS X version (10.11.6).
working fine here on my mac as well. 10.11.4
Agree about the fonts, also trackpad pinch zoom in the game doesnt work on my pc but does work on my mac. Which is weird.