Cult of the Lamb

“Death is of little consequence. Rise once more, vessel of mine. It matters not how many times you are struck down. The Cult shall continue to grow.”

 

After a small tutorial, you can choose your difficulty for the game from Easy, all the way to Very Hard. The penalty for dying on a Crusade is losing items, and the amount is dependent based on the difficulty chosen. Thankfully, the difficulty can be changed at any time.

 

The game is divided into two very distinct parts: Crusades and Base-building.

 

Crusade runs follow a typical roguelike dungeon explorer. You can move the Lamb in all directions, along with being able to roll to dodge enemy attacks. Before every run, you are given a random weapon and curse ability. Both of these items have levels to them and as you progress through a crusade, higher-level randomised items may spawn with improved stats. As you progress throughout the game and level up, new variants of both weapons and curses will be unlocked, allowing more variety to spice up the generated Crusade runs. 

 

The amount of rooms generated for each run is done via a random seed generator. There are certain things to be mindful of while on a Crusade though, such as what to expect to encounter while on your journey. This can be ascertained from the map, which appears at the start and end of each area and shows any unique rooms that have been made, along with more resources of a particular item, an extra follower, or simply a standard room. Also, be wary of room modifiers that change certain conditions throughout the run, such as taking double damage, but the enemies health is halved. Other examples are enemies dropping poisonous traps upon death, or temporarily losing some health in exchange for something else. A skull icon on the map indicates where either the mini-boss or one of the Bishops are.

 

Once the final boss of the run has been defeated, you can return to the area you previously cleared, and a new choice will appear. You can choose to either go on longer Crusades, allowing you to fight all of the mini-bosses again endlessly or, you can choose the option to destroy the statue of the Bishop that you just encountered for a chance to fight them again. 

 

Growing your cult is an essential aspect of the game. As you progress, you will gain more followers to your cult, but be wary of deserters as it’ll take more than worshipping to keep their loyalty to you. 

 

You must take care of your followers by managing three aspects to ensure survival: hunger, faith, and hygiene. Managing these is easy, but the consequences for failing any of these are severe. Followers who become hungry or sick will die if no action is taken.

 

Faith is one of the most important factors you want to keep up with your followers. There are  a number of ways it can go down, from members dying of old age, starving of food or you dying during Crusade runs. If nothing isn’t done to prevent this, other traitors may attempt to convince others to abandon the cult altogether. If you end up with zero followers, you will not revive upon death. As long as you keep your cult members happy, well fed and perform rituals, you’ll be on the right path to success.

 

You can perform sermons daily to increase Faith and declare new Doctrines provided you have the required item. Each Doctrine can give your Cult either a trait or a ritual, and you are given two options to choose from, but I found the game does a poor job of explaining these, as at no point does it tell you that the choice you make is permanent, locking you out of the other option. 

 

You can place structures and decorations within the base by placing them down onto a diamond grid system. With the right building materials and coin, you can build shelters for your followers, cooking stations, statue monuments and even a Temple for rituals; however, it was very frustrating when trying to place something in a specific spot would snap to a grid space either above or to the side of where I intended to place it. Using a mouse did help reduce the amount of aggressiveness of the grid from snapping structures into place, but it was still an annoying ordeal nonetheless.

 

Last but not least, there is the dice game, which can be played for a chance to get more coins, or just for fun with no consequences. This is very RNG based, but the main goal is to score the most points overall. There are a number of strategies you can attempt, such as destroying your opponents dice if you roll the same number as theirs. You can even score bonus multipliers by placing your dice in the same squares. Careful consideration and thinking ahead will lead you to a swift victory.