Here’s the full retrospective, which is packed with far too many interesting tit-bits for me to pick them all out here. In Bevan’s words, it contains the “top-line woos and boos of Cultist Simulator overall”, but I’m going to heartlessly skip to the boos seen as that’s where the juiciest stuff is:
Christ on a cracker! Does RPS even have an editor? Is everyone there this illiterate?
That’s the standard spelling outside the US and Canada, though perhaps usually without the hyphen.
I got this tip from reddit but it is a huge boon, it opens the game up for you.
explore Oriflamme’s Auction house until you get your hands on the Movie STUMM!
when you go to research it you need to use a fund to buy the projector.
This will give you the best Rite in the game!
Ahh, here are the dangers of going grammar-nazi, it’s pretty embarrassing when you were in the wrong! :P
I’m still 1 for 2 :)
Notice that in that retrospective, there’s no hint that maybe the game itself is less than perfect and could be improved.
Cultist Simulator was designed to be a niche game. It was not designed for mass-market appeal
Ah yes, the “niche game” excuse that was used for all the flaws in Sunless Sea as well. If you don’t like it, it’s not the game’s fault. It’s your fault for not being in that elite niche that can appreciate such a fine work of art. Only a pleb would ever get tired of repetitive busywork.
BattleTech was another niche game that had a successful launch at the same time. But its developers aren’t just patting themselves on the back. They paid attention to criticism and released a patch yesterday addressing all kinds of complaints. Maybe they can’t fix everything, but at least they’re trying.
There is a beta patch for Cultist Simulator that is going to give ability to snap-grid cards, so at least they are working on it. But yeah, in general there is little self-criticism in that article.
Design wise, I will copy & paste a text from GoneWithTornado from SA forums, as he already nailed it:
My take: the game itself is pretty much ‘learning how to play’, once you learn it, it’s ‘just’ about doing A (expeditions, some commissions) to get B (higher level lore) including some boring grind, and reach C (higher level Mansus doors). The game throws you problems of type 1,2,3,4 at you from time to time to bother you, and you counter them with actions D,E,F,G,H,I,J, and once they are solved, you continue with the grind. As he says, in reality there isn’t a lot of interesting decision making.
I think the game is overpriced right now, as they say there it’s a game with a pretty small scope, there are other bigger and better indie games out there for 20€, what they have going for them is uniqueness, but that only reaches so far. For example, the game feels unfinished in some parts, there are several Aspects but only three of them can be selected as a victory goal. So it doesn’t matter if you build a Edge cult, you are going to aim for a Lantern victory.
Yeah, I noticed that too. On the one hand, yeah, getting tons of PMs of criticism sucks and some of them must come from nutsos, but that doesn’t make your game perfect either. I thought the same: what’s your “niche”, people who like to waste their time?
As far as I can tell, the core problem is that the game has a free-to-play mindset that they inherited from Fallen London, to Sunless Sea and then to Cultist Simulator. Free-to-play is at best a necessary evil. That there aren’t any microtransactions to cut down on the tedium is hardly a solution. The solution is removing the tedium. Running around and shooting stuff is inherently fun. But if your game is built around your prose, you can’t expect people to have fun reading the same line 1000 times. It seems there’s insight being lost here.
I don’t see all of this as issues personally. The game is trying something different, and although it is a stupid grind past a certain point, I really enjoyed those first 8 hours of discovery. Rarely has a game ever carried me so effectively into its world, and the busy work may have been part of it.
I’d argue the deception of the game is in trying to advertise itself as a story driven one, while it is more of an interactive poem.
I walked away from it far from finishing it, far from making sense of it, but totally happy with what it gave me. 20$ is quite the amount of money for me, but I was handled something only a Mastercard card could have given me if I am to trust the commercials. I am glad to be one of the blessed smiling idiots!
“Are game arts”, eh?
I like what they’re trying to do, and I appreciate the lack of tutorial, but I just can’t figure it out.
There were two points where I got stuck and had to resort to the internet.
One was when starting a new game after a couple of initial failures, it was not obvious how to start a cult and get the talk icon.
When the “season of ambition” comes up (the fishhook icon), always check what it says it wants. It wants a card, then after not getting it, it will take a different card. The fact it settles for a different card makes it easy to miss that it wanted something else.
The other was when I had a fairly established cult but had no idea what I was supposed to do next. From acquiring and reading books I had received ritual cards, but thought I couldn’t use them at all yet.
You do not need to add your desire to rituals. I had thought I needed to get my desire to six first to do any rituals. That is not correct. You can do all the rituals at any desire level. You only need to fill in the other slots and leave your desire out.
If you are stuck in the mid game not sure how to advance your desire, again check the season of ambition.
They have published a roadmap. In summary:
TERESA’S BUILD (probably roughly end August)
Wounded and Missing conditions [free]
Rebellion [free]
Romance [free]
More uses for Talk, finally [free]
The Tainted Blood advanced victory, and the Long Hunt [free]
Enhancements to the Detective Legacy [free]
The Dancer Legacy: hone your flesh and spirit at the Ecdysis Club [paid]
CHRISTOPHER’S BUILD (probably roughly end October)
a use for the Scholarship skill! [free]
enhanced Research mechanics [free]
more specific goals for expeditions [free]
player-written tomes [free]
The Shaped advanced victory [free]
Expedition stories [free and/or paid]
Apostle Legacy: take up the mantle of a fallen cult leader [paid]
Priest Legacy: when your faith fails, where will you turn? [paid]
MY LORD FRANKLIN BANCROFT’S BUILD (probably roughly end January 2019)
Luxuries! The Delights of High Living [free]
The Ravages of Age! Which May Yet Be Averted [free]
Beyond Notoriety: Infamy! [free]
Painting: A Bouquet of Engrandisements [free]
Hard Times: Seasons of Wretchedly Straitened Resource [free]
Golden Days: Occasions of Munificence [free]
Pets and Familiars: (We May Count At Least On These Little Souls When All Humankind Proves Both Cruel And Faithless: Ah, Fionna) [free]
Patron Stories: Opportunities for Close and Warm Acquaintance [free and/or paid]
Familiar Legacy: Less than Human, and More [paid]
Survivor Legacy: What Have Ye Done [paid]
I think those of us who backed the Kickstarter or bought in the first weekish are scheduled to get the paid bits for free, but I guess we’ll see.
That’s my understanding
I got a minor victory! After dying like a jillion times, I got a promotion in the police department. Kind of a weird ‘victory’ for Cultist Simulator – I never even started a cult.
You can win without starting a cult?? This may have some issues with historical accuracy.
Well, I would classify that more like ‘false victories you have to avoid’ than ‘minor victories’.
Hey, man, the game told me I should consider it a minor victory, so that’s what I’m doing!
Although I was kinda hoping it would open up some new starting options, but it didn’t. Is the Doctor, the Policeman, and the Bright Young Thing the only ones? Or do you have to get a real victory to unlock more?
I totally bounced off this game at release. I would get to a point where I had no idea what to do anymore, and I’d cycle into a dread or vision related death spiral.
I decided to give it one more chance last week, but this time went out in search of some explicit advice on how to actually proceed towards enlightenment. Once I had (some) of the mechanics worked out, I found that I was really digging the story and world building in the background, which I had found inaccessible before behind my frustration at figuring out how to actually do anything.
If you like Alexis Kennedy’s other work, or 1920s occult stuff, it is probably worth revisiting this after reading some of the information available in the steam guides or on the wiki.
Expansion and updates released today.