Sights & Sounds
- Cutesy, cartoonish world with a whole bunch of evil imagery
- The character designs are adorable. The hippo follower is my son
- The music is top notch
- The rest of the sound design is pretty great as well
Story & Vibes
- There's not too much of a story. You're a sacrificial lamb (literally) who gets resurrected by an evil god. You get to claim revenge on your killers, but you must cultivate and guide a cult to serve the god who brought you back to life
- Given the juxtaposition of the cutesy visuals with the evil cult activities you'll be performing throughout the game, the overall tone is fairly silly and just a little dark
Playability & Replayability
- The majority of the gameplay is split between two major genres: city bulder and action roguelike
- The city builder parts feature you building structures, generating resources, caring for your cultists, and managing your cult. A happier cult = faster leveling and therefore better passives while you're out adventuring
- The action roguelike part of the game contains your typical top-down, randomly generated floors separated by branching paths. You're given one of five melee weapon types and a random spell at the beginning of each run. As you make your way through each run (ending in a miniboss or boss), you'll also have the opportunity to gather resources and gain followers
- All the weapons feel good except for the dagger. That one makes you feel like you're tickling enemies to death. Spells felt completely superfluous but were occasionally helpful for doing damage to bosses from a distance. Otherwise, you could beat the entire game without ever casting one
- Honestly, the game isn't all that hard. Higher difficulties reduce your health, but the dodge is robust enough that avoiding damage is a breeze if you're good with your spacing and timing. Some bosses present a nice challenge (Kallamar was an interesting mid-game skill check), but most won't take you more than a single attempt
- In addition to the two predominant gameplay archetypes, there's a few minigames like fishing and dice
Overall Impressions & Performance
- There was some (rarely encountered) slight stuttering despite my hardware being well above the specs
- I encountered a few weird soft locks when in the church. It does typically take a few seconds for your followers to filter in, but the game got stuck there for multiple minutes and required a restart more than once
- On two different occasions, I got stuck in rooms where I had killed all the enemies. In both cases, I killed an enemy (causing its hitbox and model to disappear), but it was still able to damage me. Neither instance allowed me to hit the enemy back, which I attempted to do by swinging/chucking spells at the dust cloud that was still moving around where its feet would be
Final Verdict
- 8/10. Despite the minor bugs, I had a pretty great time with the game. The gameplay loop is satisfying. The combat, while kinda easy, felt good. Making your colony and filling it with cute little cultists was fun, even if you have to sacrifice them sometimes. Overall, it's an easy recommend
- Cutesy, cartoonish world with a whole bunch of evil imagery
- The character designs are adorable. The hippo follower is my son
- The music is top notch
- The rest of the sound design is pretty great as well
Story & Vibes
- There's not too much of a story. You're a sacrificial lamb (literally) who gets resurrected by an evil god. You get to claim revenge on your killers, but you must cultivate and guide a cult to serve the god who brought you back to life
- Given the juxtaposition of the cutesy visuals with the evil cult activities you'll be performing throughout the game, the overall tone is fairly silly and just a little dark
Playability & Replayability
- The majority of the gameplay is split between two major genres: city bulder and action roguelike
- The city builder parts feature you building structures, generating resources, caring for your cultists, and managing your cult. A happier cult = faster leveling and therefore better passives while you're out adventuring
- The action roguelike part of the game contains your typical top-down, randomly generated floors separated by branching paths. You're given one of five melee weapon types and a random spell at the beginning of each run. As you make your way through each run (ending in a miniboss or boss), you'll also have the opportunity to gather resources and gain followers
- All the weapons feel good except for the dagger. That one makes you feel like you're tickling enemies to death. Spells felt completely superfluous but were occasionally helpful for doing damage to bosses from a distance. Otherwise, you could beat the entire game without ever casting one
- Honestly, the game isn't all that hard. Higher difficulties reduce your health, but the dodge is robust enough that avoiding damage is a breeze if you're good with your spacing and timing. Some bosses present a nice challenge (Kallamar was an interesting mid-game skill check), but most won't take you more than a single attempt
- In addition to the two predominant gameplay archetypes, there's a few minigames like fishing and dice
Overall Impressions & Performance
- There was some (rarely encountered) slight stuttering despite my hardware being well above the specs
- I encountered a few weird soft locks when in the church. It does typically take a few seconds for your followers to filter in, but the game got stuck there for multiple minutes and required a restart more than once
- On two different occasions, I got stuck in rooms where I had killed all the enemies. In both cases, I killed an enemy (causing its hitbox and model to disappear), but it was still able to damage me. Neither instance allowed me to hit the enemy back, which I attempted to do by swinging/chucking spells at the dust cloud that was still moving around where its feet would be
Final Verdict
- 8/10. Despite the minor bugs, I had a pretty great time with the game. The gameplay loop is satisfying. The combat, while kinda easy, felt good. Making your colony and filling it with cute little cultists was fun, even if you have to sacrifice them sometimes. Overall, it's an easy recommend