Doing the quiz, I started thinking “jeez, this is tediously wordy and not that good, Tom is going to ask me some rhetorical point about ‘if you made it through that, Cultist Sim is for you’, right?”
Then I got to the actual question and realised I started thinking that in the middle of the third entry. Well played.
I was unsure of this but picked it up after seeing good buzz from this thread and Tom. I installed it at 11:00pm last night. Then I went to bed at 2am, even though I wanted to keep playing. Today I’m extra tired from staying up late. Can’t wait to play more!
As an aside- I’m going to start a game on my Macbook also, does it always play out the same way or is there some randomness? (Like, will I have the same corporate job, will I find the same locations, etc?)
After you die, you can start over as a physician or a detective. But don’t expect a lot to change other than your job.
I’m not sure how explicit you want me to be, so I’ll spoiler it for folks worried about spoilers for the endgame.
As I mentioned, I had to backtrack to get back on the path, but at that point, I was just rebuilding lore I had broken down, the locations were repeating (should they do that?), and I was running low on named cultists, so I was going through summons to staff expeditions, take out hunters, look for relics, etc. I had of course exhausted the book store and auction house, but I was still missing the last two languages, even after being tutored by the patrons. There was no danger of getting arrested or getting sick or depressed or anything, since I had plenty of resources for opium, destroyed evidence, etc. If I ever got low on money because I neglected the job card, I had plenty of spintria to sell. I had given up trying to keep my power “fed” to level 6, because I wasn’t sure it was going to be any use until I could get more of my cult’s aspect, but I had plenty of pawns for that. I could easily get my aspect to 21, but the next threshold seemed to be 36. I was at the Peacock Door, but didn’t have the mirrors. That’s as far as I’ve gotten.
So, no, I didn’t get a good ending, unless you count being in charge of Glover and Glover a good ending. I’ll go back in at some point as I’ll be interested in seeing how the different aspects progress. Of course, I’m also looking forward to the new starting professions. I might even chase some achievements, since I don’t think you get credit for playing before the release date, which is when I spent most of my time with it.
-Tom
Ah, so we’re about the same, then.
EDIT: But the real question is… are you a Bird or a Worm?
Wish I could play this game but the minute i fire it up it sends my macbook into boost mode fan noise hell and I have to shut it down before it melts the inner workings. It’s like they haven’t framerate capped the “desktop” and its running at 1million fps or something.
I’m just going to nitpick here, but ‘here are no rogue-like returns for your failures’ really feels like a misnomer. Classically, the return for failure in roguelikes is exactly that you know (hopefully) slightly more about the game, no more no less.
Switch from “glorious” to “good” settings in the launcher. No incidence visually, but the glorious setting is an absolute CPU melter.
Classically, sure. But those days are over. Nethack is no longer the template. In contemporary rogue-likes, you unlock or progress something when you die, as a way to offset the inherent frustration of dying.
-Tom
Sure, it’s a common enough mechanic these days, but I still think it’s a stretch to map it as a feature of the whole genre. For example, NEO Scavenger and Long Journey Home are certainly billed as roguelikes and don’t make any effort in that direction. And that’s ignoring the more direct descendants of rogue like Stone Soup or Tales of Maj’Eyal (and the countless others constantly sprouting up) which have if anything gotten more popular in the last few years.
Well, if it’s any interest to anyone, here’s what I wrote about it:
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198058817861/recommended/718670
Is it kosher to put your own reviews here? I can always move it to the other topic.
So should I buy this game, or should I hold out in the hopes that this guy eventually writes a book, or collection of short stories?
Tales of Maj’Eyal has persistent unlocking. Boy, does it have it! I know because there are a ton of classes and races I can’t play.
I don’t know the others you mentioned, but I’m not saying all rogue-likes have it, and I’m certainly not saying it’s been there all along. I’ve played my share of Nethack. But the three features of a modern rogue-lite are 1) procedural generation of the maps for replayability, 2) permadeath to raise the stakes and add a sense of danger, and 3) persistent unlocks for repeated playthroughs to offset the frustration of dying in a game with permadeath. Pick any game on Steam called a rogue-like, and you’re probably going to see all three features. Conversely, make a game with those three features, and people are going to call it a rogue-like.
-Tom
Huh, I must have have confused Maj’Eyal with some other game or one of it’s ancestors. I think 2 is really the only strict requirement, but I can’t think of a lot of counterexamples to 1 either. 3 still seems silly when it literally is not in the titular game and furthermore has plenty of counter-examples. Are we really going to say the rogue-like games that don’t do unlocks, by virtue of being more like rogue, are not roguelikes?
Well, I enjoy a semantic discussion as much as the next guy, but it’s not up to me what people do and don’t call a rogue-like! I’m just pointing out three things common to most modern games categorized as rogue-likes. You said the term was used “classically” – your caveat! – in a different way, and that’s fine. But I’m talking about the way it’s used today.
Most games under the rubric of “rogue-like” have some sort of unlockable meta-progression that offsets the frustration of permadeath. One of the ways game design has evolved over the years is that it takes into account the psychology of the person playing the game. Rogue-likes are successful for a reason, and it sure isn’t for the graphics. It’s partly because they allow players to experience the highs and lows of punishment and reward. Juicier carrots and heavier sticks, so to speak. Rogue-likes have always had the heavy stick part of the equation. But I’d argue they wouldn’t be nearly as popular if they didn’t learn to offer the carrot as well.
But maybe I just don’t know the genre very well. Among rogue-likes made in, say, the last ten years, what are some that don’t do some sort of persistent meta-progression?
-Tom
Among rogue-likes made in, say, the last ten years, what are some that don’t do some sort of persistent meta-progression?
But I think that one really is the exception that proves the rule. Out of all the modern rogue-things I’ve played that’s the only one I can think of without persistent meta progression.
Edit: Wait, damnit, I forgot about ship unlocks. I retract that suggestion.
Edit 2: Hah! Conquest of Elysium 4. I knew there was one out there, somewhere.
In my opinion, the confusion is simply one of words.
Roguelikes were an old, established genre.
Roguelites are a newer hybrid, and their suits, against roguelikes’, is that they feature progression (or, as it used to be called, grind).
Because the words sound alike, they got mixed together? In any case, tons of games claim to be roguelikes while they are roguelites, and snob roguelikes fans like me are pissed and it goes on and on. People are discussing different genres, so of course they don’t agree.
It is strange to discuss this in a thread about Cultist Simulator, which is as linear and un-roguelite a game can be.
I would have thought Conquest of Elysium 4 was just a typical 4X strategy game. I haven’t played it in a while, so maybe I’m forgetting something, but what makes it a rogue-like?
-Tom
I’d say Caves of Qud, unless I’m missing something. But yeah, it’s more the rule than not these days.