All that is needed is a dedicated little lamb
It’s dark and sad when you, a tiny lamb, go for a long walk. Hooded figures press in behind you, sticking and stuffing with weapons to keep you moving towards the sacrificial circle. Older gods appear and demand your life in return to ward off some prophecies. And that is how it is The cult of the lamb starts its demo: your death.
Well, your near-death. At the last moment, the little lamb is taken away to another world. A creature, potentially evil, makes it an offer it simply cannot refuse: keep your life by dedicating it to theirs. Return to the world and create a cult during The One Who Waits. So you zap back with a smart new hat, sword and a strong side of demonic possession and create chaos.
Lamb shank, slices and cubes
I was not quite sure what I was going to come up with The cult of the lamb when I first saw it. It’s a top-down action game with a touch of roguelit. When a former patron of your current master shows up to explain, you will have to go out into the country and share the good word. That means putting down the other oldest gods and converting new followers into your cult.
At the basic level there is dodge-rolling and slashing. Special moves and upgraded weapons can be picked up as you go through room after room. It feels familiar, and not in a bad way. The fight feels solid and kept me engaged. Enemy types also help as soon as different variants start to change things. Bats and worm-like creatures begin to chase you, beyond just the angry fiery souls.
It is important to note how well the art style developer Massive Monster has also designed works. 2D meetings-3D, almost paper craft, looks great, both in screenshots and in motion. The cult of the lamb has just the right mix of sweet and grim. It is both dark and merry. That’s a lot Billy and Mandy’s gloomy adventuresbut with animals engaged in ritual sacrifices and indoctrination.
Pulls the wool over their eyes
Indoctrination is actually quite crucial, and leads into the area The cult of the lamb I enjoyed it the most. Occasionally venturing out into the world, after finding more wayward souls to join your cult, you can go back to some sort of “home base” and start setting it all in motion. Things start simple: Take a trailer and ask them to collect some lumber.
But followers need food, so I had to build a cooking pit to get them fed. It was here that the base-building leadership side began to form, and it really took hold.
Now that I was heading down paths, I was not just looking for personal benefits. A node can offer me some food or an item that could increase my followers’ abilities. At one point, I got a necklace that could make a follower never have to sleep. Finally, no more annoying rest. The sequel would be a devotion machine with 100 percent uptime.
My quick demo at PAX East took me from curious to very interested in The cult of the lamb. The art style and atmosphere are obvious features and the action is solid. However, the base build and trailer control add a really exciting layer, which made me make some cool choices that I wasn’t always used to making in a roguelite. I could not just annihilate heretics and zealots to build my following. I needed to build a lasting, stable, effective cult to really keep moving up the world.
The cult of the lamb may seem like other games of this kind you’ve played before, like a guard Zelda-style action-adventure roguelit. But it is misleading. Dig a little better, and its art, dark humor, and management meta-systems provide a pretty nice combination. Keep an eye out while it’s ready for launch sometime in 2022 on PC, PlayStation, Xbox and Switch.
