Cultist Simulator
| Cultist Simulator | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Weather Factory |
| Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux |
| Release | 31 May 2018 |
| Genre(s) | Simulation game |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
Cultist Simulator is a card-based simulation video game developed by Weather Factory. It was released for Microsoft Windows, macOS and Linux computer systems on 31 May 2018.
Gameplay
Cultist Simulator is a narrative-driven simulation game that has the player take a role of a citizen in a nameless society where their actions may led to them creating a cult-like following. The game's mechanics are presented as a combinations of cards and action buttons. Cards represent a range of difficult elements, from persons, attributes like health and reason, emotional states, locations, items, wealth, lore, and other aspects. The player starts with just a few cards, including a career and health. To play, the player drops cards onto slots contained within the action buttons and then start that action that starts an in-game time. When the timer is complete, the player can then click on the action button and collect the played cards and reward cards, which may be random or predetermined based on the action. For example, one of the first action buttons is "Work"; placing their career card on this will earn the player wealth cards.
As the game progresses, new action buttons can appear. Some of these are beneficial, adding more options that players can do, such as Study, Talk, Explore, or Dream. Other action buttons are a determinant to the player's progress. For example, players will eventually get an action button that reflects the passage of their character's time in the game, which will automatically consume wealth cards; should the player have no wealth cards when this action's timer completes, they will gain Hunger cards, which leads to a chain of cards and action buttons that can lead to the death of the character. Some cards, often generated by action buttons, also have timers attached, either which they will burn out, or may revert to a different card type. The game takes place in real-time, but the player has the option of pausing the game to review cards and actions, and to place or collect cards from the board. The game ultimately has many different parallel victory and failure conditions, both based on "sane" and "insane" routes that the player's character may uncover.[1]
Development
Weather Factory is an independent game studio created by Alexis Kennedy, who previously had founded Failbetter Games. Failbetter had developed several gothic and Lovecraftian horror story-driven games, including Fallen London. Kennedy split from Failbetter and founded Weather Factory in 2016, looking for a more hands-on role in designing and writing than his management-focused role at Failbetter.[2] Cultist Simulator represented the studio's first game and an experimental title that they could produce quickly with minimal costs.[1]
The use of card-driven narrative systems was already something Kennedy was familiar with through Fallen London. Kennedy said that a card-based approached helped to make concepts tangible and allowed for players to organize the cards as they saw best fit.[1] Cultist Simulator represented the most minimalist take Kennedy could take with the card-based concept, since cards represented a vast vocabulary of terms within the game.[1] While Kennedy provided user interface elements to help the player understand where to place cards, much of the strategy and reasoning was something he wanted players to discover for themselves. Kennedy did this to both mimic crafting systems in other role-playing games, and to create the Lovecraftian feel to the game. Kennedy said the player "will be able to mesh together an understanding of this very deep, very complicated lore in the same way that the scholars of Lovecraft are actually doing in fiction."[1]
Kennedy announced the project in September 2016, providing a free simplified web-driven version of how the game would play, and with plans to use Kickstarter to raise funds for an anticipated October 2017 release date.[3] Kennedy launched the Kickstarter in September 2017 and pushed the release date into May 2018; the Kickstarted succeeded in obtaining £82,000 of its target £30,000 fundraising goal.[4] The game was released on 31 May 2018 for Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux systems.[5]
Kennedy plans to be able to extend Cultist Simulator through downloadable content following the Paradox Interactive model.[1]
Reception
![[icon]](/wiki/File:Wiki_letter_w_cropped.svg){kind=small} | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (May 2018) |
References
- ^ a b c d e f Velocci, Carli (22 May 2018). "Why the Cultist Simulator devs built their Lovecraftian game on a house of cards". Gamasutra. Retrieved 31 May 2018.
- ^ Sinclair, Brendan (25 May 2016). "Alexis Kennedy leaving Failbetter Games". GamesIndustry.biz. Retrieved 31 May 2018.
- ^ O'Conner, Alice (30 September 2016). "Dark Ritual: Failbetter Co-Founder's Cultist Simulator". Rock Paper Shotgun. Retrieved 31 May 2018.
- ^ Warr, PHilippa (1 September 2017). "Cultist Simulator brings cosmic longing to Kickstarter". Rock Paper Shotgun. Retrieved 31 May 2018.
- ^ Evans-Thirlwell, Edwin (31 May 2018). "Cultist Simulator review - a crabbed but intoxicating bargain with otherworldly forces". Eurogamer. Retrieved 31 May 2018.