#theaveragegamer

Release Date: 19th October 2021 Available On: PC, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S Genre: Indie Game, Card Battler, Rogue-Like, Card Game, Story Rich, Puzzle, Horror

Review Length: Short (~600 words)

Review Spoilers: Minor

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Gameplay

Inscryption is an Indie horror, rouge-like, card-battling game. If you want to draw similarities with card-battle games, think of Yu-Gi-Oh or Pokémon cards, but a more simplified version that still requires some strategies. But with all the ways you could possibly play, you’d be sure to find your own cheesed style. Personally, I am not the best at strategy-based games or card games, the hardest card-battle game I’ve played was Club Penguins Card-Jitsu back in the day, but I found Inscrytion to be fun and immersive, even if a little frustrating at the start.

The game is played in ‘Acts’. Act One would possibly bring the most frustration to an average gamer or someone who just isn’t familiar with strategy card games, and as I am both; I was frustrated at the beginning. But, once you’ve ‘failed’ a few times in the first Act and find yourself falling into the game challenge more and more, it can become fun, and you can start to pay attention to the details that the game you and the game will slowly become easier as you gain insight into the fights and bosses presented to you.

The game is filled with puzzles, most are not necessary to the game, but it may help you have better cards to play with or unlock more of the lore of the game.

Once you’ve completed the game for the first time, you unlock challenges that can make gameplay more difficult, if that’s your masochistic jazz.

Story

As to not give away too many details as this is a story-dependent game that should be unspoiled for the average gamer.

At the start, you’re unsure of who you are and just assume you’re playing a blank-slated husk character that represents yourself, which is later proven different. You’re placed in a darkness-encased environment with a strange character that introduces you to their card game in an almost Dungeons & Dragons Games Master manner. The attitude this darkness-encased character has is kept throughout this Act. Once you’re allowed to explore your environment a little, you’re allowed to really intake your enclosure and partake in the puzzles it presents you.

The story is well put together, enraptures, and lets the player piece the story themselves without it being spoon-fed to them. As the game continues into its further Acts, you feel an “Oh woah what” sensation as you start to piece the story together with the snippets you gain access to.

You can unlock more background lore details to the story of the game in the later Acts, but it isn’t necessary to fulfill your average gameplay experience but might be fun to unlock in further playthroughs or if you want to have in-game downtime to explore.

I love both major and minor characters that are introduced to you as you play. They all keep the story heavy-duty glued together nicely. The characters all mesh and conflict with each other well. It’s a joy to watch their interactions with each other and the player, especially once the twists and turns start.

Art Style/Music

Inscryption is beautifully put together. The art style throughout the game changes dramatically, but it does not cause any conflicts to the player's gameplay experience as the Acts progress. I personally LOVE most of the art styles that present themselves in this game.

The music in Inscryption is beautiful to listen to and even have their own little easter eggs if you listen to them closely enough. Act 1, I believe, has the best themes for it environment and bosses, but Act 2 also have great themes also. Some of the tunes might be a bit jarring to listen to at the beginning with their sharp tones and rumbling bases. But once you really get into the vibes and understanding of characters in the game, they’re amazing to engross yourself into the world of inscryption and uncover its story.

[minor spoilers from tune theme names below]

My top songs from the Inscryption OST would be:

1. The Trapper

2. The Scrybe of Magicks

3. The Four Scrybes

4. Deathcard Cabin

The whole of the Inscryption OST is available on Spotify.

Final Comments

I honestly enjoyed Inscryption, especially once I really started to understand and get into the gameplay and story. The story and art styles are the real cream of this crop and really bring the story together.

I highly recommend this game to an average gamer or if you want to try out a card-battling/rogue-like game for the first time.

Cheers,

The Average Gamer ---------------------------------

If you want to chat or get Spoiler-esque game insights, feel free to PM me!

Release Date: 11 August 2022 Available: PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. Genre: Indie, 2D, rogue-like, dungeon crawler, management simulator. Review Length: Medium (~1.4K words) Review Spoilers: Mild

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Story

You begin your story in Cult of the Lamb as a little lamb (informally named 'Lambert' by the community), the last of their kind, by being executed by The Bishops of the 'old faith'. You avoid the end of your life because of an imprisoned, banished deity known as 'The One Who Waits' who promises to resurrect you if you make a deal, where it’s now your goal to free him from his imprisonment chains by The Bishops. 'The One Who Waits' gifts you a demonic crown to hold and bring forth your powers.

You partake in rouge crusades through different 'Lands of False Prophets', to defeat the four Bishops to free the disgraced to whom you owe your life.

In the name of 'The One Who Waits', you form a cult, gathering followers and proving that you can manage this cult by providing for your follower's needs. Practising rituals to favour your followers and your own gameplay technique, to further gain the power to roll and cut through The Bishops' lands with a steel woollen fist (hoof?).

While the game is mainly focused on its gameplay rather than its story, the plot is still enjoyable. It is a simple and straightforward story that still adds to the overall experience. As you fight deeper into the dungeon floors, you meet various unique characters. Interacting with them is always interesting, even though you might feel some are a bit similar to each other personality-wise.

Gameplay

Cult of the Lamb is a cutesy-looking, rogue-like indie game about forming and managing your own cult to gain 'devotion' from your followers to become more powerful to master your way through the main four levels available to you.

There are difficulty settings in this game, so I’ll be speaking for an “average” difficulty play-through; no zero-hit speed run attempts here!

Even with a recommendation from the game itself to play with a controller, I played with a keyboard and mouse so I’ll be speaking from that POV also.

To start off, I usually find dungeon crawler rogue likes difficult to manoeuvre, but I found Cult of the Lamb very accessible to an average gamer and even when I was frustrated at certain points, I always found myself inspired to continue on with the fight.

Weapons are provided to you in 6 main classes, Swords, Axes, Daggers, Gauntlets, and Hammers. It is total luck of the draw which weapon you are provided with at the start of a run, which some may find annoying if they believe they are more proficient in one weapon over the other, but I like to think that this way allows a player to get a feel for every class of weapon that could be thrown their way, not allowing them to feel stuck. Weapons can be swapped out during a run, depending on the randomly generated rooms and floors that the game hands you.

Curses are also provided to you at the beginning of the run and can be interchanged as the run goes on through shops and loot drops. Curses are spells that are used to cause extra damage to your enemies, poisons, pushbacks, projectiles, and more are available to unlock. There are a total of 25 curses that can be unlocked as you play.

Tarot cards are a game mechanic that makes you feel every run is different and makes you develop a strategy for every card you're dealt with. Tarot cards could provide you with extra health, damaging rolls, better loot, and much more. There are 43 tarot cards to unlock and become available as you continue your runs. You collect Tarot cards as you continue your run, from chests and from shops that are randomly generated on each floor.

Relics are introduced a little later in the game, they can be discovered in a shop or randomly from a loot chest. Relics can be recharged after use, but some relics are classed as 'fragile', indicating it's a single use.

Once you've completed a dungeon by defeating its boss, you can replace them as many times as you want, for as long as you want, as the dungeon then becomes infinite with many floors and many chances to gather valuable resources for your followers back at camp.

You have 3 save files available to you, allowing you to play many saves in different ways.

I personally found the controls a little hard to manage at the start, but thankfully at a certain point, you feel like you suddenly develop an almost muscle memory of your movements and tactics (and slightly sore fingers from long play sessions - I am weak, yes) as you flail through the dungeons. You feel like you developed multiple play styles in such a short time, that you feel like an almost above-average gamer!

If you feel overwhelmed by the mechanics I just listed, that you might feel like it would be too confusing for you to understand, do not worry - I felt the same for a little while! Once you've gotten through about 2-3 hours of gameplay, you start to feel more comfortable. Even if you don't in that rough timeframe, the game has no time limit. Take your time, and have downtime chilling with your followers!

In this downtime from your average dungeon crawling, manage your cult's stomping ground and meet interesting characters. Characters who provide you with quests to help you gain more stylish (100% polyester sadly /j) cloaks to advance your playstyle and let you sinfully gamble for a bit of extra gold. Build your campgrounds up in decorations, resource mines, burial grounds, and more with the devotion you gain from your follower's worship.

Talking about your followers, give them tasks to bear, sacrifice them, get them high, and maybe even marry your favourite! maybe marry your other 5 favourites too! Depending on the route you go with unlocking the rituals you can conduct, give your cult following the life they probably didn't want! Don't worry if they say they want to leave, just reteach them your ways in jail gentle reformation lessons!

For Twitch Streamer, Cult of the Lamb might be a good game to have your viewers feel a little bit involved in your content! Integrate your game with your Twitch account to allow you a few engaging features!

Here is a few highlights of this feature:

Viewers can use Channel Points to fill up your Twitch Totem Bar. When full you will receive a reward!

Viewers can vote to Help or Hinder events will happen automatically.

Allow viewers to enter a raffle to create your next follower. The winner can design the follower and it will display their Twitch name above the follower always.

3-Twitch exclusive follower forms become available!

Art Style/Music

The cute, cartoonish style of Cult of the Lamb is a joy to look at and experience, even with the game's slightly dark undertones, it never ruins the mood, I say it only enhances it. You might draw a few similarities with the style of Don't Starve Together by Klei Entertainment. In fact, the two developers have done crossovers in their respective games!

The coloured lighting and dark shadows shown in the game largely enhance the unknown or middle-of-nowhere feeling of your camp and the dungeons you traverse. The strong outlines of the artwork, from the bushes, the rocks, the poop, it doesn't cause any eye strain to the player.

The music in Cult of the Lamb is mystical sounding, which enhances the daunting moments, and the moments of stressful movements you have to perform. Some of the more psychedelic-sounding music might be a bit off-putting or unsettling to some players when you first hear it, but once you settle into the gameplay, the music almost drowns out over your constant internal attack planning.

My top songs from the Cult of the Lamb OST would be:

Start a Cult

Knucklebones

Silk Cradle

The Cult of the Lamb OST can be found on Spotify.

Final Comments

Cult of the Lamb can be both chill and stressful. Once you get comfortable with your multiple available playstyles, the stress almost melts off and becomes a type of determination to finish your story. I did feel the story was just over and done with suddenly once the final boss was defeated, but I wouldn't use that to discredit the other 99% of the game.

The replayability is fresh and each play-through feels new. It's a suitable game to start off with if you're not familiar with rogue-likes and want a bit of story attached to it.

Cheers,

The Average Gamer

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If you want to chat or get Spoiler-esque game insights, feel free to PM me!

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Hiya, I’m The Average Gamer and I’ve been playing games at the utmost average level since I was too young to have access to the internet. The main platform I play on is PC, even though I started really getting into playing games on console (Xbox360/Nintendo Wii) eons ago. The main gist of this blog is more of a personal one. I am using this place to express topics I am interested in, mostly to do with the games I am playing or have played. But the way I want to review the far and few between games I play and/or enjoy (or don’t enjoy) is not in an in-depth, formally written, journalistic way. But in a way that people who are also average and not too serious about games can enjoy. It’s for people who just want to be told if the game is accessible to people who aren’t ‘Pro-Gamers’ and just want to enjoy the game atmosphere, experience, and gameplay. This is also a place where the average gamer/gaming conversation could begin. Not to be embarrassed if you genuinely have no clue how to play a certain game, or certain genre (FPS's are my kryptonite!), or if you’re not too into games to begin with and just curious about a certain game. A few small things about myself to get the ball rolling:

- I am from Europe and 20+ years old. - I am not too fussed about pronouns so She/Her, He/Him, or They/Them I'm all okay with. - Most of my games I play from Steam. - I have a Nintendo Switch also (it is DUSTY tho). - The main gaming franchises I enjoy would be Pokémon and The Elder Scrolls. - I am not too deep into any fandoms anymore, but I'd chat about almost anything. - I am currently an apprentice student, so finding time to play games at a consistent level is difficult. I hope to bring the most capital-average content to you! Cheers, The Average Gamer

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