- iOS, Android, PC/Mac/Linux
Of all the games that I picked up on Steam last year, Cultist Simulator from Weather Factory was, by far, the strangest. It sells itself as a card game, but I don’t think that’s really what it is. There are cards, sure, but… Yeah, it’s weird. Let’s not equate weird with bad, because this weird is a fun mystery to try and work your way through and now it’s on a platform where we can really sink our teeth into it: mobile.
Here’s the thing: Cultist Simulator comes with no manual, no tutorials, and no help whatsoever. You could cheat and go watch videos or read walkthroughs if you get frustrated (and you will), but then you’d be missing the point. The main event in Cultist Simulator is figuring out how all the pieces fit together on your own.
So, it’s less a card game and more a story-driven, narrative game that just happens to use cards as its medium. It’s unique and creative and, it won’t surprise you, the brainchild of Alexis Kennedy. Who’s that? He founded Failbetter Games and was the developer of other strange narrative titles like Fallen London and Sunless Sea. If you like those games, I think Cultist Simulator will be right up your alley.
The mobile port is for iOS Universal and Android and doesn’t appear to contain the PC/Mac/Linux DLC, The Dancer. I’m sure it will be coming down the road if the base game sells well. It’s currently only $5 with a launch sale, and I guarantee you’ll get at least a $5 headache out of figuring out just what the hell is going on, so doing well shouldn’t be too difficult.
- Cultist Simulator for iOS Universal, $5
- Cultist Simulator for Android, $5
- Cultist Simulator for PC/Mac/Linux, $20
Half the fun is sacrificing people!
I mean, er, working it out for yourself!
I have no idea wtf I’m doing, but I’m definitely enjoying it.
Damn it! You’ve made me try it…That’s 7 whole Canadian dollars!!!
Let’s see what happens.
Just died right before summoning an Ancient One.
What a game.
Yeah, that’s exactly what the devs said in their launch day newsletter:
This game has left me hopelessly confused on PC, so naturally I bought it on launch day for iOS.
If this doesn’t sum up this game, I don’t know what does.
Gearing up stats for THAT EVENT.
At least now I’ll see a different death
What a wonderful game.
Playthroughts are the perfect length too. Not too short to give you time to learn (and you WILL learn), not too long to be frustrating when you die (and you WILL die).
Love that there is even some sort of persistency in the world, with following playthroughs having references to previous ones.
Awesome stuff.
As predicted I died an horrible death of course, but now I’m a super strong DETECTIVE!!!
This game is FULL of surprises.
I have no damn idea what’s going on. I can’t seem to generate anything but funds consistently. I keep dying to things coming out of nowhere. It is frustrating on another level.
And I’m hooked lol. I can’t explain why, just that I am. grumble grouse rabble rabble
Very happy with my purchase so far. Seems like a lot of variety in my runs so far, and I just ran down my ipad’s battery for the first time in a long while.
Yesterday night (or was it this early morning, can’t say) I had a HUGE, I mean HUGE WTF/REVELATION moment.
It was like I just played the tutorial before…you will see it when you’ll reach it as well, without any doubt.
Awesome game.
I also discovered the game has some kind of persistency…HOW exactly you die in the previous run opens up new choices for your character who starting immediately another run.
I was a reporter, a detective, a physician, a humanist…
What a game, weird I never heard about it before.
Does anyone know how to create health if you start without any?
IIRC the run where you don’t start with any health, you’re not meant to have any.
You can create health by studying with 2 vitality, but I believe you only get vitality from using Health in another action.
Oh.
OH!
Yeah that’s exactly what I meant…certain starting professions have no health AT ALL…and I die by illness.
Incidentally it was BY FAR my best run…my eyes where like O_O all the time after ‘the thing’.
Not sure how to survive but I guess there are other methods to prevent illness?
Not sure about preventing it, but you can treat illness by dreaming of the illness (resting) and throwing some money at it (for medicine).
Dread has been my nemesis. Can never time the counter right.
I’m on the fence about how I feel about this one, but I don’t think I can stop until I’ve unpicked all the mechanics. I might be here a while.
I’m doing my best to not watch a video, but really enjoying the stumble so far. Discovering the pause button made things far easier, at least.
I don’t know how to do anything.
Congratulations, I think that makes you a Cultist Simulator expert.
This thing sounds completely mental.
It just explains nothing. Confusion through obfuscation.
There are a couple of vids on YouTube that explain the mechanics without spoiling anything.
[This might be considered a victory]
Well played game. I’m not even mad.
So hard and complex. I used to play on the plane, but was a week between games and I lost continuity
Cultist simulator (despite the lame name) is one of the best and most original games I played in recent years.
It really clicked with me.
Besides Elder Sign Omens (a completely different game) it’s also the best Lovecraftian game I ever played.
Everything in the game, from the cards, to the sounds, to the music, to the vagueness of the initial playthroughs set perfectly the mood of a early 900 foggy London or Boston.
Yesterday I almost won (or so I think, I was SO CLOSE), the play through lasted 30-40 mins.
I started razor focused on some key elements I knew from previous playthroughs would get me on ‘something’ while building up stats and getting all sort of items meanwhile.
Felt like an RPG. Almost no verb was left alone, timers always active (you lately discover, or so I think…never won mind you, it’s way easier to build up in early stages than in late ones).
To people interested in the game, don’t get discouraged by the ‘game tells you nothing’ comments.
It’s only partially true.
After 3-4 deaths (a matter of 1-2 hours, maybe less) the mechanics are pretty evident and the game DOES explain things in the descriptions and in the card icons.
Yes…it doesn’t tell you precisely: You need this to do that etc… but that’s part of the game.
I’m the ‘You find a magical sword that seems to do something’ more than ‘You find a +4 magical sword that gives +8 only against goblins at full moon’ type of gamer, so YMMV.
In the early phases there isn’t instant death so the game lets you experiment a bit, and find what does what.I don’t have great memory but if I managed to understand how to build up health, passion, reason, or complete rites…everyone can do it.
After the initial phase, and after some events happen, the narrative really takes the stage, and it’s pretty glorious.
Some advices from a total newbie (I didn’t even know about the game existence till 10 days ago):
The better you get at the game, the faster you reach pivotal points (a great compliment for a game like this, too many nice games/roguelikes became too boring having you repeating initial parts over and over).
Just my two cents…back dying.
If you’re feeling like you’re stuck on a hamster wheel, you need to experiment. Looking stuff up undermines the design.
I ran into the same issues playing on PC. I’ve found the mobile version helps me maintain continuity because I play more often. The UI isn’t ideal on a phone, but it’s definitely usable. I just pause more often than I might otherwise to look at a bunch of different cards before making a move.
Ok I’m intrigued. Downloading!
Just scored my very first (minor) victory.
I feel like a little Cthulhu.
What a game.
I had a technically super successful start with loads of money, health, books, lore, skills, and yet terrible luck actually starting a cult. Absolutely swimming in resources and yet barely able to get off the ground.
I just did my most succeful unsuccessful run.
Tried THREE times to pass the Stag Door but couldn’t find the right answer to the riddle, despite 3 successful expeditions and many injuries and dead cultists. Tried even to cross the Woods but lost my sanity there.
I was trying to recover and find the answer to the riddle in an ancient monks monastery, but apparently killing everyone there wasn’t good with the Bureau.
Still, I learned SO MUCH in this run it’s ridiculous.
Huge flight tomorrow, and thanks to you yahoos I bought this. Hope the plane has charging ports.
This game is the is the reason I own a power bank.
It took me about 5 tries and about 13 hours to unravel the puzzle that is this game. Ive not quite finished a good victory but it seems pretty inevitable. I’m not sure how much replayability I’ll get now I’ve solved the mystery that is the mechanics of this game, even though I know there’s more to see. I may well give it another run or 2 to see if my efficiency improves, or if there’s any more twists it might have in store for me.
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed being lost in this world.
I’m in the middle of a FANTASTIC run.
Always wondered what special items were for, besides being able to sell them for funds or for some special events…NOW I KNOW, and the game just became (if possibile) even better.
This game is very neat but kinda hard to play on my phone. I’ve never wished I had one of those 7" monsters (lol) before.
Yeah, this just does not work for me on the phone screen. Took a look at the PC version, but I really don’t like the aggressively tilted look of it, so I guess nothing to do but wait for an iOS sale and grab it for my girlfriend’s iPad, since it won’t run on mine (can’t update it to iOS 10) if I actually want to play it…
I bit the bullet and got it for my girlfriend’s iPad. This is definitely the platform to play it on. Got all the way through my first “descent,” which seemed like it was cruising pretty good when it just sort of stalled out for lack of money, and because it was impossible to have some of the more transient resources around when they were called for.
EDIT: Second run went much faster than the first, and both stalled and ended for the same reason: lack of transient resources, and no reliable way that I know (yet!) to get them.
EDIT 2, since discourse has that dumbass rule about not having more than three posts in a row: This game is very frustrating, but I can’t stop playing it.