Cult of the Lamb Test

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Running your own sect sounds like a dream come true. But managing the allegiance is exhausting and punishing heretics is tedious – and yet I didn’t want to stop!

All screenshots and video scenes are from GamersGlobal

“You’re asking me if I have a God complex? I’ll tell you something: I am God!” Well, that quote out Malice only applies to a limited extent Cult of the Lamb to. Although you can already develop fantasies of omnipotence in the roguelite from Massive Monster, after all you don’t have your own sect gathered around you every day. But it quickly becomes clear that managing the allegiance not only brings eternal glory, but also a lot of work. In addition, the little lamb that you play has to deal with the four bishops of the old faith. They wanted to sacrifice it, but it was saved at the last second by the one who is waiting.

At its core, Cult of the Lamb can be split into two parts: The base building, which comes in the style of a slimmed-down, occult Animal Crossing. Aside from actually constructing buildings, you also have to keep your followers happy, clean up their feces, go fishing, and much more. The second pillar of gameplay is the Crusades in the Lands of the Ancient Faith. Here you fight against all kinds of monsters, the action is based on genre colleagues like The Binding of Isaac and Curse of the Dead Gods.

A wild mix of genres. This naturally raises the question of whether the combination of these approaches also works. After my preview a few weeks ago I was still a bit skeptical, now I’ve spent a lot more time with my little lamb and can tell you in this test what the game is good for and whether you should consider a career change to become a sect leader.

Important for the integrity of every sect: A hearty sacrifice ceremony.

Create, create, build Sektle

At the beginning, the basis of your community is still fairly manageable, a temple, a statue of you, that’s pretty much it. You have to chop down trees and break stones to get resources that you can use to construct new buildings. Of course, the choice increases as the game progresses. Your loyal followers will help you, who generate devotion through prayer, if you have collected enough, you will receive a divine inspiration and you can use this one to unlock a new blueprint. It is similar with faith, which you increase through sermons and thus unlock new skills for the crusades in the land of the old faith – but more on these later.

But you not only expand your settlement and thus ensure that wood and stones are generated automatically, you can refine resources, your subordinates have places to sleep, they clear away their faeces and vomit themselves and much, much more. You must also keep your subjects happy. On the one hand, it runs on food, which you produce using a simple mini-game. You can find ingredients along the way, grow them in fields and of course there is also a fishing mini-game. On the other hand, hygiene has to be in place, after the meal your people relieve themselves where they can and you can clear away the leftovers. A shitty job.

For new blueprints you need divine inspiration. Very important: the toilet, otherwise your subjects will poop everywhere.

A question of faith

But the most important thing is probably faith. You increase it through sermons, the construction of new buildings or rituals. But be careful, not every festival is equally fun for everyone. If you sacrifice a resident to He Who Waits, your people are more likely to be in turmoil. Unless you’ve proclaimed a doctrine that does the opposite.

Collected prayer stones empower you to proclaim new policies, which are sometimes extremely useful. Cannibalism, more faith generation, lower food claims. Everything is possible. Sometimes the subjects speak to you directly and have smaller missions. For example, they want to know how a feces dish tastes. Oh well.

There are many other small mechanics in Cult of the Lamb. The dice game Astragaloi, the punishment of renegade followers, the levels of your population, the indoctrination of new followers, the nice helper Rattau, buyable new followers and much more are on the plan. You’ll never get bored with base building alone. Even if it can occasionally be annoying due to its small parts, but never to an extreme extent.

The boss fights are challenging but never unfair. And the designs are always awesome.

The struggle for allegiance

The second major pillar of Cult of the Lamb is the Crusades into the Land of the Ancient Faith. There are four areas here, you guessed it, each bishop has his own section and you are supposed to kill them all. You move through randomly generated levels, which are divided into individual rooms filled with enemies. You know something like that from The Binding of Isaac or other genre representatives. Once you’ve cleared all the rooms in a section, you can choose one of several ways to clear it encryption or Curse of the Dead Gods. You always see what awaits you: more fights, new followers or just a boss.

Each world of the bishops is divided into four sub-areas, at the end of which small intermediate bosses and finally the big boss await. They are always strongly designed and challenge you with different mechanics. In the beginning, Cult of the Lamb seemed a bit easy to me on the second of four levels of difficulty, but from the first bishop it attracts pleasantly, but never becomes unfair.

You defend yourself with normal weapons that can have effects such as poison or vampirism. Special abilities let thorns shoot out of the ground, create poisonous puddles or fireballs. To use it you need alacrity, which you get from hit enemies. You receive passive bonuses via tarot cards, which disappear again after the respective run. You can buy new cards for your deck from various merchants or get them by completing side quests. Overall, the battles in Cult of the Lamb are a lot of fun, but they lack a bit of synergy potential compared to the genre competition.

Author: Dennis Hilla (GamersGlobal)

Opinion: Dennis Hilla

Father, I have sinned: Even though Cult of the Lamb made me announcing it on the Gamescom 2021 immediately under its spell, after my preview a few weeks ago I wasn’t sure how cult the game would really become in the end. As my test showed, my fears were correct insofar as grinding is sometimes necessary and even minor fiddling can be annoying. But that didn’t really bother me at any time, rather the “one more round” principle quickly set in.

The management of my own cult in the base is extremely motivating and if you put your mind to it, you can decorate your village in a chic way and expand it in many ways. Animal Crossing, I hear you trapping. Coupled with the wonderfully dark humor, my charming subjects could always put a smile on my lips, which may seem strange in view of human sacrifices and forced marriages. But you have to have played Cult of the Lamb to understand that.

The developers of Massive Monster also did a great job with the fights, even if they are rather simple compared to, for example, The Binding of Isaac. But that doesn’t bother me that much, because they are quick to do and you need a maximum of 10 minutes per section. The ideal snack for in between. In short, if you’re a fan of roguelites and don’t mind a bit of grinding and fiddling, then you should definitely grab it. At around twelve hours, it’s not a monster in terms of size, but it’s the ideal indie bite to eat in between. moh!

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