Cult of the Lamb is perfect example of an innovative indie that proclaims to be one genre, but assumes multiple identities and delivers. The game's charming yet disturbing theme lends you freedom to play as you want, and have your actions make sense on the lore-front. Yes, this roguelite is most likely the easiest and most accessible compared to its competitors, but that accessibility comes at a cost of some gameplay, like combat, lacking depth and complexity for genre veterans. Knowing all of this, should you sacrifice your time to the altar of The One Who Waits? To this, we say yes.
Several days had passed while I was out crusading in the name of The One Who Waits. My followers had patiently waited for my return, praying at my altar, tending to my crops, and keeping my land clean. As I returned with heretics, my cult rejoiced my successful crusade, praising me with gifts and well wishes. However, one little follower, a fish by the name of Hettle, drew my attention as he ran up to me.
“Praise be to The One Who Waits! I wish to eat a bowl of poop! Would you make it so, dear Lamb?”
If my followers desire to consume bile, who am I to stand in their way on their personal journeys to salvation?
This spiritual transaction, if you will, legitimately took place this past week as I was playing Cult of the Lamb. Yes, a follower asked me to make them a literal bowl of poop, and they were delighted to consume it. Several times throughout my playthrough I openly questioned of my actions were similar to those of Charles Manson’s, or even the Heaven’s Gate folks. Lo and behold, this was an interesting specimen of a roguelite-and-civilization-management-simulator, and it captured my attention quite well.
At first glance, CotL looks charming. The hand-drawn creatures of CotL successfully woo you wish their gigantic eyes, adorable voices, and silly mannerisms. As you play, you’ll be forced to choose between two sinister options in the name of keeping your cult alive. Since the game’s release, I’ve seen folks describe CotL as Hades-meets-Animal–Crossing, and I largely agree with that definition. I initially thought that CotL was “just another roguelite” seeking to compete with the likes of Hades, Enter the Gungeon, and Returnal. It’s not. Don’t expect it to be. In some ways, CotL walks the path few games have tread in innovating a niche genre that contains already successful titles. However, in others, some of what CotL seeks to accomplish _just_ brushes the surface and falls short of creating a meaningful yet complex gameplay experience.
In CotL, you play as a Lamb who has been resurrected by The One Who Waits, an Old God who seeks to return to power by slaying the four bishops who cast him out a millennia ago. By taking part in crusades and growing your cult, you tread along the blessed path and save heretics from blaspheming in the names of other bishops…right? That’s how cults work. You must be a good little lamb and save the creatures of the world from themselves.
Crusades comprise CotL‘s roguelite gameplay loops. These crusades are usually short, but sweet, lasting naught more than 15 minutes at a time as you’re progressing the main story. A single crusade is comprised of multiple mini-dungeons chained together, each mini-dungeon being comprised of four-to-eight rooms. After completing a mini-dungeon, you’re taken to a minimap of several one-way paths, some leading to other mini-dungeons, others leading to villages to recruit followers and harvest resources (more on that later), and others leading to…well, you’ll see.
I appreciate the design choice of having shorter roguelite gameplay loops in the main story of CotL. One of my bigger issues with roguelites like Hades and RETURNAL is that runs can vary between several minutes to several hours. This is not the case here, as CotL keeps your actions constrained by default and only lets you extend your crusades should you have the resources and patience to do so (more on that later).
Upon starting a crusade, you’re given a randomly selected weapon and curse (i.e., special ability). These weapons vary in damage as well as speed, meaning that your current run will initially be dictated by the weapon you start with. Curses vary in damage, precision, and style, too. Some are targeted abilities, allowing you to chuck fireballs at enemies from across the screen. Others target enemies for you, requiring you to simply push a button and nothing more.
CotL wins out on being a simple yet accessible roguelite, as it takes out variables that often add unnecessary complexity that punish players who are still learning the ropes about what is “strong” and “weak” in-game. What you start with in CotL is what you get, and you must learn to use it to your advantage. I never felt punished for making a “wrong” decision, even when I did have the opportunities to make decisions about what I ended up wanting to take along.
The few instances I was allowed to make decisions on my crusades occurred whenever I defeated mini-bosses and/or encountered merchants on my crusades. For instance, when I encountered a tarot-card reader, I was given two passive combat buffs to choose from. Sometimes, these decisions were easy choices, but others were more difficult. Luckily, crusades were short, so I never felt like my decisions were going to plague me in battle. For those of you who are completionists, don’t worry about “missing out” on unlocking content should you choose to unlock some combat buffs over others. You will accomplish what you want to accomplish, in time.
CotL is comprised of four biomes, each with its own aesthetic, soundtrack, and set of enemies. I love how these biomes look and sound, as they resonate with their own flair and are created around the bishops that await at the end of the biomes. For instance, the fourth biome (Silk Cradle) is host to spider-like enemies, destructible objects that look like spider’s nests, and plucky strings and drummy beats to accompany your crusades through a spider’s web. It all feels so unique and colorful. And yes, the soundtrack is fantastic. I am listening to it as I write this review!
I appreciate the enemy design and difficulty in CotL. Enemies’ attacks and movements are easily and visually telegraphed, giving you ample opportunity to dodge and counterattack. This simplicity further supports the notion of CotL being a player-friendly roguelite. Should you want to increase the difficulty, you’ll still find that the combat is manageable and light. The only difficulty spike occurs in boss battles involving clusters of enemies and bullet patterns one might expect from Enter the Gungeon or RETURNAL.
The second half of CotL‘s gameplay loop is that of its cult management, or town management. For those of you familiar with the likes of Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley, this should whet your appetite in between crusades. Upon returning from a crusade, you have the opportunity to grow and cultivate your flock of followers, assigning them duties to maintain your land. Of course, you can opt to participate in this busy work yourself, but why bother? You have a near-infinite number of minions who will jump at the chance to achieve their enlightenment. All you have to do is…feed them. Keep them happy. Keep them…entertained. Keep them…under your influence.
Becoming a more dedicated, mysterious, yet powerful cult leader occurs as you grow your cult, increase your followers’ faith in your actions, and successfully clear crusades. In doing so, you can unlock additional rituals that impact your cult. For instance, as I progressed down the path of Law and Order, I was given the choice of assigning a follower to be a tax enforcer or a faith enforcer. The former would collect gold from my followers on a daily basis, whereas the latter would collect faith. Of course, my religion aligned with materialism, so I absolutely settled with the tax man. My cult was to PAY THE MAN (me!). MONEY TALKS.
I love these decisions, as they force players into choosing the kind of cult experience they want to foster as well as have that experience make logical sense in-game. I felt that each one of my decisions impacted my cult, yet at the same time, I couldn’t help but wonder how my cult could have functioned if I had selected alternative rituals. As it stands, you’re not able to reset your choices, meaning that once you make a decision…be prepared to live with it. I hope that future updates to CotL include a way to reset your ritual tree, as I’m not too keen on starting all the way over just to see how things work in a parallel universe where I opted out of requiring my followers to PAY THE MAN on a daily basis.
Patience is a virtue, and I learned the hard way that good things do come to good little lambs who wait. I will admit that I was initially put off from attempting longer crusades in the earlier stages of the game, as my followers’ hunger, age, and health progressed for the worse while I was away on crusades in the name of The One Who Waits. Of course, I had unlocked the ability to teleport back to camp at will (thus ending a current crusade) very early on, but it proved to be clutch even when I was exploring the third and fourth biomes for the first time. As I leveled up my cult and welcomed more folks into the flock, I began to unlock rituals that could preserve my followers’ states of being (i.e., hunger, faith, health, and sleep) and buildings that automated some of the functions in my camp, such as farming, watering, chopping wood, and mining stone.
Building my cult was an easy and appropriately-paced affair. Each successful crusade and upgrade unlocked additional features and cosmetics I could implement on my cult to my liking. Of course, I personally went through of phases where I would spend more time mucking about in my cult rather than crusading, and I feel like others will do the same. Luckily, you’re not punished for hanging around your cult and building things as you want. All you need is time (a finite resource, sure) and a supply of food.
I appreciate the building system of CotL, as it functions as both efficient yet unique. As someone who has spent many hours designing and redesigning farms in Stardew Valley, I feel that I have just enough functional and cosmetic options to make my cult feel unique without requiring me to invest an egregious amount of time to unlock “the good stuff” and tailor my home to my desires. It’s easy to queue up buildings and harvesting processes without much confusion so that when you return from a crusade, the fruits of your followers’ labor is now ready to be harvested! Editing your buildings is also a breeze, albeit a decision that is hidden within a menu and not readily evident. However, I would imagine that most folks won’t feel the need to modify or remove portions of their land.
As much as I enjoyed playing CotL, I cannot help but comment on the simplicity of crusading through the Old World and the combat system along with it. Much my combat involved me simply swinging a sword/dagger/hammer, dodging every so often, and rinsing and repeating. Sure, the variation that emerged in each crusade was largely dependent on the weapons I started with as well as the weapons, curses, and tarot cards I was lucky to come across. However, there is only so much I can take of the above before gameplay feels repetitive, and in CotL…that moment may come sooner rather than later.
I’m not 100% sure how CotL should best resolve the roguelite simplicity problem, if you could call it that, especially seeing as CotL is one of the most accessible roguelites I’ve played thus far. Each run ends up being fruitful and having a meaningful impact. Allowing players to choose a weapon at the start would remove the already minimal variation that exists when a player decides to stick to using their favorite kind of weapon and refusing to try other weapons. I do think that there are opportunities to diversify room layouts, though. Much of the crusade rooms end up looking and feeling the same, with a few hazards and destructible elements scattered about. This is especially true in the fourth world. Hades excels at varying up the layout of rooms to the point of changing their shape, adding unique floor hazards and traps, along with more. I would love to see more rooms in CotL to take other shapes and force the player into making more meaningful decisions around where to dodge and attack. Having a timed enemy rush may help in the form of clearing an unlimited number of enemies for a set amount of time may add some variation, too.
I mentioned earlier that the cult management is also simple and lacking in the ability to let experienced players streamline how they want to manage their followers and construct buildings. This became evident to me when I was managing a cult of a measly 25 followers of varying ages, perks, and statuses. After returning home from a crusade, I noticed that several of my followers were not eating despite food being available (something I later learned was a bug and easily resolved by saving, quitting, and restarting CotL). I thought that the best way to solve this issue was to go into the cult management menu and check the hunger levels of each follower. Then, I would scroll all the way down the menu looking for the most hungry and seek them out wherever they were hiding on my cult. Once I found them, I instructed them to eat. This solved the problem, but hoo boy, this was a tedious affair. If you want to see which followers may be most efficient at working, or seeing who is the oldest and a viable candidate as a sacrifice, you should expect to do a lot of tedious scrolling. Expect more scrolling for larger cults.
Again, I am not sure as to the best way to make managing cults a more streamlined yet meaningful affair in CotL, especially on console. CotL excels in its ability to keep players in menus just long enough to make an informed decision that leads to a decisive action, and I do not want that to change and push players away. However, trying to keep track of a large congregation, each member having different traits, statuses, and thoughts, can prove challenging in its current state. I don’t think CotL should go so far as to emulate APICO’s window and organizational management structure (which, I must emphasize, is one of the best management systems I’ve used in a game so far), but I do think having advanced settings and/or display functions may assist folks like me who are bent on sorting their flock of sheep by their current hunger levels.
I understand that Cult of the Lamb is an indie title (and a great one, at that), and this game was released less than a week ago. As such, it is reasonable to expect some bugginess that could impact gameplay progression and clarity. In the nearly fifteen hours I spent reviewing CotL, I encountered several bugs. My colleague Dillon Sweeney, who streamed CotL over the weekend (come subscribe to our Twitch channel and watch us play!) encountered several bugs, as well. While most of these bugs are not game-breaking, merely requiring you to save, quit, and restart the game, I can personally speak to two back-to-back crusade-ending bugs in the fourth world that prevented me from completing the run I was on, let alone meditating to teleport back to my cult. It was quite frustrating to lose nearly 30minutes of progress each time because of the bugginess. I understand that Massive Monster is committed to ironing out the bugginess, but do be warned that you may encounter some issues when playing CotL on console. This should not deter you from playing CotL, however. It’s worth it.
Cult of the Lamb is perfect example of an innovative indie that proclaims to be one genre, but assumes multiple identities and delivers. The game’s charming yet disturbing theme lends you freedom to play as you want, and have your actions make sense on the lore-front. Yes, this roguelite is most likely the easiest and most accessible compared to its competitors, but that accessibility comes at a cost of some gameplay, like combat, lacking depth and complexity for genre veterans. Knowing all of this, should you sacrifice your time to the altar of The One Who Waits? To this, we say yes.
