Cult of the Lamb
Cult of the Lamb is the latest release from Massive Monster and Devolver Digital. You play as a cute little lamb who was sacrificed by a cult, but was saved in death by The One Who Waits, an exiled and trapped god. This gift has a price though, as you must now build your own cult and destroy the four bishops who trapped The One Who Waits and release him.
The Game
Cult of the Lamb is a combination colony sim/roguelike. You spend half of the game at your base, where you tend to your cult. There are a few main stats you have to worry about. First is the cult’s Faith. If it drops too low, your followers will begin to dissent and eventually leave the cult. You keep Faith up by keeping followers healthy and happy, and performing various rituals. Your followers will produce Devotion which unlocks new buildings for you to build at your camp. Each individual follower has a Loyalty stat that can be raised by interacting with them daily and giving them gifts. Followers with higher Loyalty provide more upgrade points during sermons and provide a Devotion bonus each time they level up.
The other half takes place in four different dungeons. You fight your way through several random rooms, gathering resources along the way, to take down various bosses then head home. To be absolutely clear, this is a roguelike in the “venture into randomized dungeons with different equipment and updates each time” sense, and not the “go as far as you can in random runs until you die and earn rewards that make the next run more likely to succeed” sense. It’s an important distinction to make, as a lot of people (including me) much prefer one over the other.
Combat
The combat generally feels really nice to play. It’s fast and fun. There’s so much breakable stuff in every room and it’s so fun to smash everything. There’s a wide variety of curses that are all cool and interesting. I really appreciate how getting hit feels noticeable in this game in ways that it hasn’t in others I’ve played. I’ve had several experiences in various combat games where I develop a complete blindness to my health and don’t realize how much damage I’m taking until I’m dead, but this never once happened in Cult of the Lamb.
Other Cool Things
The music is good, the art style is undeniably cute, and I love the design and atmosphere of each individual dungeon. I also love that there’s a bleat button. There are few things that I love more in video games than buttons that exist only to make a noise.
Something else I liked is that, for the most part, you’re never forced to be a jerk to your followers. Cruelty is an active choice that you have to make. You don’t have to sacrifice your followers, but look at how much power it gives you. You don’t have to imprison dissenting followers, but they’re annoying, and isn’t that the most egregious crime of all? A lot of games try to make commentary on various topics that are ultimately undercut by the fact that you as the player don’t really have a choice outside of choosing not to play it. Games condemning violence don’t really have much of an impact if the only way to progress through the game is through violence. In Cult of the Lamb you have to think about what you’re doing and decide how far you’re willing to go for the sake of power.
Issues
However, despite all the good things about it, there are some problems. The most pressing are the bugs. Most of the bugs I’ve encountered have just been annoying, like followers getting stuck until I made everyone come to the temple or the scrollbars not working sometimes, but some have impacted gameplay in pretty negative ways. During my 2nd boss fight, the death animation didn’t play and the corpse was invisible, so I almost ended up restarting the game until I stumbled across the reward item to properly end the fight. The game got stuck during the rewards screen after the 4th boss, so I had to restart the game and redo the entire dungeon. The devs have been good at patching bugs so far, but some of the patches have introduced new bugs. As I’m writing this, there’s some stuttering that wasn’t there before, and my faith level keeps getting stuck at a certain level no matter what I do to raise it until I perform a brainwashing ritual to lock and unlock it. While I would recommend this game, I wouldn’t blame you if you put it off for a while until all the bugs have been fixed.
The colony sim progression doesn’t feel balanced with the dungeon progression. I had fully upgraded everything a little while after beating the third boss, and I was playing “suboptimally;” I generally stayed away from sacrifices and didn’t do all that many rituals. I imagine if you were playing a bit more ruthlessly you could max out the upgrades before you even got to the third boss. It just felt kinda weird to be sitting on piles and piles of gold when it still felt like there was still a while to go until the end. It also felt like there wasn’t a whole lot to do with the special resource from the 4th area aside from building that area’s decorations.
Verdict
I give this game 4 out of 5 cthulhus. It’s fun, it’s cute, but it’s a little bit buggy and the progression differences can put a damper on things. Cult of the Lamb is currently $24.99 and available for PC, Xbox, Playstation, and the Nintendo Switch.
(4 / 5)
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Continuing with video games I got to try out at PAX East, I was delighted to demo Let’s! Revolution! the debut game by developer and publisher BUCK. BUCK has historically been an animation and design studio, notably having worked on Into the Spiderverse and Love, Death, & Robots. Let’s! Revolution! marks their first foray into the world of video game development. I found this so interesting, I spoke to the Creative Director for Let’s! Revolution! on his career and how BUCK navigated that transition (find it here).
Let’s! Revolution! is a roguelike puzzle game inspired by the classic game Minesweeper. In it, you play as one of six heroes fighting their way along the dangerous roads to the capital city. Once there, you can defeat the tyrannical king and save the kingdom from his reign. Released in July of 2023, the game has been met with high praise. Unsurprisingly, this includes the game’s artistic and musical direction (by the team at Antfood), which is both stylistic and beautiful.
Watch the console reveal trailer here for a taste of the delightful animation and music:
I had the opportunity to play a 20 minute demo of Let’s! Revolution! on the PAX East show floor. I played alongside the Creative Director and other people who worked on the game. It’s important to note that this wasn’t long enough to get a feel for all the characters or the replayability of the game. But, it was definitely long enough to be enchanted by the game and the passion of the people who made it.
The core mechanics are inspired by Minesweeper. The player must use the power of deduction to uncover procedurally generated maze pathways to the exit. However, enemies are hidden along the way and can defeat the player before they reach their goal. Each character has their own special abilities that can help. Items and general abilities can also be bought or discovered to make your hero more powerful. All of these are limited in some way either by energy (your action currency) or limited uses per run.
From what I played, the gameplay is relatively simple with a mix of chance and strategy. I liked the cozy atmosphere, especially when combined with the ‘high stakes’ mechanics associated with Minesweeper. The UI was easy to understand and interact with while still being cohesive with the storytelling. And of course, the character design is exquisite and narratively driven, with many of the characters presenting as queer.
Having released on consoles earlier this month (April 2024), Let’s! Revolution! is even easier to access than ever. Let’s! Revolution! is a perfect game for those who love cozy roguelites and beautiful (queer) aesthetics. I definitely recommend it for fans of roguelites looking to try something fresh. Look for it anywhere you game!
(4.5 / 5)
Check out my other PAX posts here!
