| Cultist Simulator | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Weather Factory |
| Publisher(s) | Humble Bundle[a] |
| Engine | Unity |
| Platform(s) | |
| Release |
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| Genre(s) | Simulation |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Cultist Simulator is a card-based simulation video game developed by indie studio Weather Factory and published by Humble Bundle. It was released for Windows, macOS and Linux computer systems in May 2018, with mobile versions published by Playdigious and released in April 2019. A port for Nintendo Switch was released in February 2021.
In a 1920s Lovecraftian horror setting, the player amasses and expends human and nonhuman followers alongside occult texts and tools, in discovering and then pursuing any of a number of wildly differing paths to immortality, while carefully avoiding deaths arising from starvation, despair, madness, or the attention of powerful adversaries. The game is experienced through an array of playing cards moved about on a tabletop, with cards occasionally pulled from a map representing a transcendent reality accessible in dreams.
Success requires partial familiarization with an intricate "Secret Histories" mythology invented for this game and for connected Weather Factory projects "Book of Hours" (a followup game slated for 2023 release) and tabletop RPG "The Lady Afterwards." Reviewers praised the game's writing, while others criticized its pacing.
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