Cult of the Lamb

Price: $24.99

Story Score: ⭐⭐⭐

The game has a straightforward story, although also not very interesting. Spoilers, but the storyline essentially is that you have to vanquish these four Bishops – gods- to ensure the rise to power of your personal savior- the One Who Waits. If you go down a rabbit hole there’s plenty of obscure hidden lore, but the main storyline is pretty basic and serves mostly to justify the gameplay.

Gameplay Score: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Overall I enjoyed most of the game – probably because I had to be on easy mode but still. It’s partly a roguelike, which is a fancy name for a dungeon crawler (basically going room to room defeating enemies, and getting loot), but not a very complicated one. Throughout the game you have three abilities: attacking, dodging, and curses. Attacking is pretty straightforward, and there are a couple of genres of weapon – dagger, sword, claws, axe, hammer- and after leveling up you can get different effects on them. However, you don’t get to pick which you want since the weapon is randomly generated after entering the dungeon, although sometimes there will be an opportunity for you to choose another. Dodging is pretty self-explanatory and doesn’t change throughout the game. Curses are also given at the start of the run but can range wildly from a pretty, nice AOE to a pretty-not-nice pile of goo. The dungeons are also short and end with a boss fight- typically resulting in a new Follower.

Speaking of Followers there’s another half to the gameplay – which is running a cult. The game doesn’t have it in the title for no reason, as part of your job for your spectral boss is running a small group of devoted worshipers. This grotto is generally where you spend most of your time in the game. Be warned, these creatures might look adorable- and the art style is amazing – but they’re a lot of work. In the early days you’re going to be spending a lot of time running around cleaning up their mess and fixing sleeping bags. Followers are also fully customizable you can change their appearance and their name – although their clothes will be locked. 

Followers play an essential role in keeping your cult up and running- they gather resources for you to build more structures, grow farms and pray at your shrine. They listen to your sermons – which allows you to unlock new weapons and curses. Be careful though because until you manage to get all the upgrades that will make them beautifully self-reliant, they are quite the handful, and if you don’t keep an eye on them, they’ll start dissenting- and they can take other Followers down with them. Other than that, these cuties are an annoying but essential part of your game. You can do all sorts of things to determine their lifestyles and behaviors, but if you’re looking to go that in-depth, you’re probably better off watching a playthrough or getting the game yourself.

The ratio of time I spent with my cult as opposed to crusading in the dungeons is probably like 20:1- although I didn’t do any sort of math on that. However, I like this because I’m not good at roguelikes and dungeon crawlers.

Artstyle: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I mean the art is adorable, and the music is a nice bop. Personally I like the blood moon soundtrack the best. ‘Nough said.

Overall Score: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Good game, worth the money.

P.S. The axolotl and Clauneck are the best