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Cultist Simulator: Let's Boogie

The gameplay loop only becomes truly unbearable if you're me and you want everything or are doing a challenge run or something. Winning the game isn't too hard to do fairly quickly once you learn it.

There is an issue of them relying on future updates to add content, which is a bit problematic in a single-player game, and the current game is rather sparse.

(major victories when)
 
If you're having trouble finding tools, there's a trick you can use.

Use professional painting with lots of passion, a special pigment, and for an inspiration use lore of the same type as the pigment that's at least level 4. The result is a "unique" painting that's a Strength 8 tool.
 
Got my first standard victory by pursuing Enlightenment, woohoo!

Kinda dicked around cuz I wanted to see as much as I could see but yeah, I won!

I find it a bit funny that you can still go to work while you're halfway between human and a Name or a Long or whatever you become when you ascend, I kinda skimmed over the text cuz I was so excited hahaha. I mean like you go to G&G like "Oh Hey Aspirant I love that glow in your eyes... are oyu on a diet? You've lost so much weight!"

Even semi-human cultists gotta pay the bills I guess. Though apparently AK said on his twitter that 1) the commission system is suppose to supplant that due to an as-of-yet unimplemented system that would preclude someone with three or more Marks to pursue mundane professions...

Next I wanna try leading an Edge cult while pursuing Sensation. If I can do that and start as a Bright Young Thing... that'd be cool.
 
NonSequtur said:
This is the dark souls of clicker games.
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Honestly after playing to the border of the 2 hour point I'm inclined to agree, and not in a good way. Most of the game is just click-dragging cards into tasks. Tasks are generally either monotonously repetitive and self-explanatory, or unexplained and in some cases substantively random, either of which requires little thought. Much of the negative things happen as a product of even more random events.

The first playthrough I purged because I realized how much I messed up. The second time around I've been patiently building up the core stats through study and effort, committing to physical labor with my now robust health, while using the remainder to start researching books and stuff, but it leaves me feeling like what's the point? It doesn't help that its a rather boring unstimulating tableau that is also cluttered and disorganized.
 
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firefossil said:
Honestly after playing to the border of the 2 hour point I'm inclined to agree, and not in a good way. Most of the game is just click-dragging cards into tasks. Tasks are generally either monotonously repetitive and self-explanatory, or unexplained and in some cases substantively random, either of which requires little thought. Much of the negative things happen as a product of even more random events.

The first playthrough I purged because I realized how much I messed up. The second time around I've been patiently building up the core stats through study and effort, committing to physical labor with my now robust health, while using the remainder to start researching books and stuff, but it leaves me feeling like what's the point? It doesn't help that its a rather boring unstimulating tableau that is also cluttered and disorganized.
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Physical labor is probably the most boring and also the least profitable and useful way to fund your cult. There's also the risk of injury, thought if you've diligently leveled your strength skill, that can be mitigated. While painting carries the risk of generating mystique and notoriety, it generates a lot more money, plus you can make tools for your cult with it.

That said, the game is not for everyone, and if you don't like it, you don't like it.
 
Death_Sheep said:
Physical labor is probably the most boring and also the least profitable and useful way to fund your cult. There's also the risk of injury, thought if you've diligently leveled your strength skill, that can be mitigated. While painting carries the risk of generating mystique and notoriety, it generates a lot more money, plus you can make tools for your cult with it.
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I tried painting but it wasn't generating very much money, I'd pay 1 money in and get 2 out, despite throwing multiple Passion at it. Its also unclear to me what effect dumping Moods or Reputation or various Occult things into it has, I tried each but none seemed to generate more value.
 
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firefossil said:
I tried painting but it wasn't generating very much money, I'd pay 1 money in and get 2 out, despite throwing multiple Passion at it. Its also unclear to me what effect dumping Moods or Reputation or various Occult things into it has, I tried each but none seemed to generate more value.
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The key to making money with painting is to stick your Mystique and Notoriety into the Art or Bread slots instead of Passion. What you use for inspiration doesn't affect the money you earn very much, if at all. Portraits of your cultists and mood pieces inspired by Dread, Contentment, or esoteric influences will mostly generate more Mystique, while Lore and portraits of summoned beings will generate Notoriety. If you fill all four Art or Bread slots with Notoriety, you can net up 5 Funds from a painting.
 
Apart from erasing evidence with moth henchmen, how do I get rid of notoriety?
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The book shop have some decent books that gives you 1 reason or passion with 2 g or e card.
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Madame shop have high chance of giving contentment for 1 fund. Useful if you need to combat desperation.
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Painting with passion can remove uneasy card.
 
VoidZero said:
Apart from erasing evidence with moth henchmen, how do I get rid of notoriety?
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Henchmen with Heart.

VoidZero said:
The book shop have some decent books that gives you 1 reason or passion with 2 g or e card.
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Yeah, it's the reason why after you get one or two cultists in case you need someone to take the fall you should suspend all cult activities and just focus on working and buying out the inventory of the shops. Much easier to get things done with 7 Passion than with 3.

Artificial Girl said:
So far I've only managed to find the Wood and the White Door and I'm not sure how to get the others.
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You get to the Stag Door through ambition. Further than that...I think there are several ways. I just made a really high Key lore and kept sticking it in and it kept working.

Cataphract said:
I find it a bit funny that you can still go to work while you're halfway between human and a Name or a Long or whatever you become when you ascend, I kinda skimmed over the text cuz I was so excited hahaha. I mean like you go to G&G like "Oh Hey Aspirant I love that glow in your eyes... are oyu on a diet? You've lost so much weight!"

Even semi-human cultists gotta pay the bills I guess. Though apparently AK said on his twitter that 1) the commission system is suppose to supplant that due to an as-of-yet unimplemented system that would preclude someone with three or more Marks to pursue mundane professions...
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I kind of like the idea of just up and quitting your cult because the mind-shattering demigod you summoned killed your boss so now you can snag that corner office and that's all you ever really wanted.
 
SeptimusMagisto said:
You get to the Stag Door through ambition. Further than that...I think there are several ways. I just made a really high Key lore and kept sticking it in and it kept working.
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The Stag door doesn't have the same solution every run, in a way that's signalled when you get to it.

Knock getting through it regardless would make some sense though, hm.
 
SeptimusMagisto said:
No, Knock worked after Stag door.

There are four riddles, and each one needs to be answered with a specific piece of Level 6 lore.
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Level 6 lore is also the maximum level that you'll need to complete patron commissions (always keep a level 6 Secret History around, just in case). In the late game, completing the commissions and then selling the Spintria at Oriflamme's Auction House is a viable income stream.
 
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NemoMarx said:
Anyone have tips for getting secret history lore, on that note? Other than the scrap you get at the start I never figured out a reliable means.
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Dream. White door with Health, Stag door with Reason, Spider Door with a sacrificial victim, or Peacock Door with the thing that lets you through there. Each door goes through a sequence and the same cards are always in the same places, even when they're hidden. It's a great way to get Secret History lore and influences for rituals.
 
I have never even heard of this game, but based solely on all of your discussion on it, I'm buying it tonight.

Reminds me of Call of Cthulhu: Dark Mirror.
 


Right, the first major content update is dropping October 16th. Most of the stuff is free to all Cultist Simulator players, other stuff is restricted to the DLC (or Perpetual Edition, which grants you access to all DLC forever, and is no longer for sale). The DLC's going to be like, three dollars?

Anyway, the more general stuff everyone gets includes:
  • Changes to how followers work, so that uh, you don't LOSE THEM FOREVER if they fail once - instead they accumulate scars which both give them stat bonuses and, if they have too many, will kill them, they can go missing or be wounded etc.
  • Romance options, which are about what you might expect if you're familiar with Sunless Sea's romances.
  • Rivals and Troublemakers - they're racing you to ascension, going on expeditions etc. You might be able to get them back on your side, or you might have to kill them by sabotaging their expeditions. Because that's a thing apparently.
  • Gifts - you can give an item to a follower for a permanent stat boost. This can result in single cultists being able to pull off big rituals by themselves. DO NOT GIFT FRANGICLAVE. You cannot give multiple items or get the item back, afaik.
  • A change to the detective legacy, presumably to make the job less 'why this'.

DLC exclusive stuff is:
  • The Dancer Legacy, where you work at the Ecdysist Club, Gaiety Theatre, and other places real and imagined. Comes with a unique minor victory like the Detective Legacy does.
    Some sort of shapeshifting or animal possession.
  • Two new lower level ascensions for Moth and Heart.

Stuff I'm not clear on:
  • New NPCs and patrons. Not sure how much is Dancer and how much is free.
  • Probably more because the change-logs are kinda scattered atm.
I'll report on specifics when it hits production.
 
I came back to this recently to finish up the Power and Sensation routes. Spent a lot of time kicking myself for not having made effective use of summonable spirits on my Enlightenment run. Unless you're running a Moth cult and you've fully promoted your Moth follower to Skintwisters, the Voiceless Dead, Caligine, and Raw Prophet are all more likely to succeed at disposing of evidence than your followers. And Maid-in-the-Mirror, King Crucible, Teresa, and Ezeem basically guarantee successful expeditions that require their Aspects.
 
And the best thing is that with the right rituals they're effectively free (aside from having to take time off work). Just put the first ones you summon to work and/or teaching while you're gathering the rest and then set out a party of literal gods with maybe a token mortal to watch over them.
 
A feature I'm looking forward to is the ability to actually do something with your rippling peak/post-human physique. When meeting with an investigator, you'll be able to use your strength to try and murder them yourself! However it's a very high risk option and if you fail, you can't have any more personal meetings with them.
 
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Excite.

According to an update posted on the Steam page, "The DLC will come with a clutch of new updates for everyone, including Follower wounds/scars, romance, rebellion and a bunch of UI/UX improvements to make running your cult that bit more fun." That should clear up what's free and what's not, I hope.
 
They outline some of the details in their blog:

Article:
The Dancer DLC was more important. We wanted to buy advertising around the launch, and there was an implicit promise to Perpetual Edition owners (all DLC free forever!) that there would in fact be some DLC, and that they wouldn't have to wait forever. So if we went live with no Dancer DLC, that would be embarrassing and commercially difficult.

But some of the mechanics in the free update were more urgent. The Dancer DLC is fairly self-contained, but Follower wounds and gifting – NPC romance – NPC followers turning rivals – these are all complex systems with interlocking effects on game balance. I really wanted to get as much feedback as possible, as early as possible, while we still had time to change them; and I wanted some of that sweet beta tester bug reporting.


It also goes into the philosophy of some of the balance changes, and notably not all of the romance is free?

OWER, ENLIGHTENMENT, SENSATION… AND CHANGE. You can't romance an NPC unless you share their deepest desire – one of Power/Enlightenment/Sensation/Change. Power, Enlightenment and Sensation Desire are existing routes to game victory, and Change – the bone-deep inexplicable desire to change yourself – is the new route to ascension for the Dancer DLC.

So I went through our existing NPCs and assigned a relevant desire to each one, and jiggled the assignments until everything made sense and was reasonably balanced. And then I wrote the romances. And then I realised that, hey, I'd just put 25% of our NPC romances behind a DLC paywall. I didn't even realise until that late, because I had all the Dancer content there in my workspace.
So I dithered about this for a while. Would people object? would people go hunting for the romances and get frustrated when Leo or Clovette was unromanceable? If I put a note in the game saying BUY DLC TO ROMANCE THIS CHARACTER, would that be worse or better?

In the end, what made the decision again was simplicity. The romances were in the game; they worked; a few of them failed gracefully if someone didn't have the Dancer DLC; and the Dancer DLC, as above, was probably too cheap anyway.
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Since the Change ambition (which sounds neat!) is Dancer, and those are tied into how you romance people, it locks out a few of the options. But it's a small number and honestly, 3 dollars for the dlc is perfunctory.
 
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