#combat game

Back again for another (slightly) spooky game review! This time, we're diving into Cult of the Lamb. I got incredibly hooked on this game and spent a week ignoring my upcoming uni deadline, obsessively playing it. (I wouldn't recommend that, but I had a great time.) Due to my fixation, I may be slightly biased in my review. However, a good friend also enjoys this game, so I trust that my bias isn't too far off.

The last of your kind, all other lambs have been sacrificed to prevent a prophecy of The One Who Waits regaining power. However, just as you lay your head on the chopping block, awaiting a cruel fate, this god saves you and grants you new powers to fight your way to freedom. In return, you must build a loyal cult in their name while simultaneously seeking out those who planned your demise.

Cult of the Lamb is a roguelike dungeon crawler developed by Massive Monster and published by Devolver Digital on August 11th 2022. On release the game received positive reviews for its game play and replay value, and has since received three nominations at the 19th British Academy Games Award including best game.

Cult of the Lamb features a few different elements of gameplay, the two most common being combat within the dungeons, and then taking care of your followers.

There are four doors for you to enter, each containing a different style of dungeon with unique enemies, mini-bosses, weapons, resources, and a final boss. Each door contains four different 'crusades' you must beat one after the other until you can fight the main boss of the dungeon and open the next door.

When first entering a dungeon, you're provided with a randomly assigned weapon and a curse. There are six different weapons and five curses that can be picked, each with its own variations and buffs.

During these runs, there are different routes you can choose from, each containing different areas. Most are normal combat areas, occasionally featuring effects that change your combat or enemy drops. Other areas, however, are completely different. You can find or save followers, visit various shops, gain more hearts, find areas dedicated to specific resources, enter unknown '?' areas, and more! Every new door unlocked opens up new areas for you to visit and resources to collect.

On top of this, when exploring an area, you may enter rooms containing NPCs that will aid you during your crusades. The most common NPC is Clauneck, who helps you by offering two tarot cards to choose from, each providing a buff for the crusades. Another character is Kudaai, who provides you with three new weapons or curses to choose from. Finally, there's Chemach, who provides you with Relics that perform special actions or attacks and either break upon use or need to be recharged afterward.

When not crusading, you'll be required to take care of your followers by farming, cooking, and even cleaning up their waste. You will need to build various buildings and decorations using the resources you collect to keep them happy. Hosting sermons and praising your followers are essential to keep their faith alive. During this part of the game, you will have 'Faith,' 'Hunger,' and 'Cleanliness' gauges to manage. Keeping these filled prevents followers from dissenting or dying. This task becomes easier over time as you gain more faith and build bigger and better structures, but you will still need to keep an eye on your followers occasionally.

Holding sermons in the temple is crucial not only for maintaining faith but also for enhancing your stats and gaining new gear for your crusades. The temple also allows you to choose new doctrines. There are 48 different doctrines to choose from, divided into six categories. You must choose wisely, as each time you proclaim a new doctrine, you must pick between two options. Each doctrine provides an upgrade affecting your cult, such as new follower traits, buildings, rituals, and more.

In my play through, I chose the wedding doctrine, I now have four husbands and sacrifice anyone who annoys them. The game offers a lot of feature allows you to have fun and customise the game to your liking.

Other smaller elements of gameplay are scattered throughout the game, such as a map containing additional areas to explore and interact with NPCs. These areas have their own shops and side quests for you to complete. One area even allows you to fish, providing more resources for your followers or selling for coins.

In one area of the map, you can play Knucklebones, an in-game dice game. I had SO much fun playing this mini-game. The game consists of two 3x3 boards. Each player takes turns rolling a die and placing it in a location of their choosing. Each line of dice is added together vertically, creating your score for that row. If a player places multiple of the same die in one row, the total is then doubled or tripled, increasing the overall score. You can also destroy the opposing player's dice by placing the same die in the column opposite to theirs. The game ends once a player has filled their board, and the highest score wins. This provides a nice addition to the game, and a new feature to enjoy and spend time on.

The game is frequently blessed with new free updates from the developers, allowing newer content and replay ability. the most recent update 'unholy alliance' added the addition the The Goat, a new playable character allowing you to play couch co-op with friends.

The art style is great, simple and cute at times but also eerie and sinister at others. The music follows a similar pattern, with some tracks creating rich and tense atmospheres, while others are more upbeat and lively. I really love the use of the in-game language in the tracks. It sounds melodic and unique, while also being the same sounds characters make when talking. This enhances the cult aspect of the game, as some tracks sound like followers singing or chanting, adding to the feeling of being in a cult.

As much as I loved Cult of the Lamb, all games have their drawbacks, and although they’re not game-changing, this one has them too.

The difficulty spikes massively after completing the second dungeon. During my first playthrough and again during the post-credits gameplay, I struggled with this jump and ended up getting quite frustrated at times. I went from rarely dying to dying quite frequently. While it’s good for a game’s difficulty to increase as it progresses, and I enjoy the challenge, this spike seemed unbalanced, as if the difficulty jumped up a few levels rather than gradually progressing. However, the game does have a difficulty option you can change throughout. I never adjusted this myself, but for others getting frustrated at this jump, this may be an option to keep the game more enjoyable. Over time, I got used to the difficulty jump and became better equipped to handle new enemy attacks.

It is also really difficult to keep your cultists alive and happy in the beginning. I struggled with resource management, and wood was my biggest enemy for the longest time. You do eventually overcome this, and at some point have so many resources you don't know what to do with them. However, in the beginning, it does pose quite a challenge, especially since time does not pause while you are in the dungeons, so your cult can easily starve and lose faith in you while you’re away.

Another issue I found while playing the Switch release of the game is that it crashes from time to time. This is most likely due to the Switch’s outdated hardware and the fact that I decorated my cult way too much for my poor Nintendo to handle. However, it does add a minor annoyance when it crashes in the middle of a dungeon, causing me to lose my progress.

Something I haven't mentioned in other reviews is the game's accessibility features that focus on both graphics and gameplay. I was pleasantly surprised when reading through them, as the game offers a lot more features than I initially expected, making it more accessible to those with certain motor or visual issues, or even just for a more relaxing gameplay experience.

Although I never used it myself, the ability to pause time while crusading makes it a lot easier for those looking for a more 'cozy' experience without the stress of starving cultists, or for those seeking less challenging gameplay. There's also the option to automatically cook, clean, fish, and more without having to time a button press.

My favourite feature is the option to make the text bigger. Although it is such a small feature, I find that a lot of games nowadays have such small text, and I always struggle to see it from a distance, even with my glasses on.

Cult of the Lamb has released on PC, Mac, Nintendo Switch, PS4/5, Xbox One/series X/S and retails for around £20. the main story is around 15 hours in length, however the game is packed full of replay ability with its post game content, allowing you to get much much more out of it.

As states above I loved loved Cult of the Lamb and would recommend anyone looking for a game with that mix of combat and resource management. Or even some cozy gamers who enjoy a bit of combat, as the cult building and decorating can still provide hours of fun and the character sprites are just so cute.

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