Spoilers Ahead! (Cult of the Lamb)

To better understand system dynamics, I played the digital video game Cult of the Lamb on Steam ($25) with Ngoc Tran for around three hours via local multiplayer. The game was developed by Massive Monster and published by Devolver Digital. You can find the link to the Steam page here. As a short summary of the gameplay, Cult of the Lamb is a base-building and rogue-lite action game where the player manages a cult of followers to strengthen their personal abilities, which are used to traverse dungeons and forward the story.

Figure 1: Image of food and local multiplayer Cult of the Lamb

But first, some sketchnotes from our sponsors. (me!)

Figure 2: A sketchnotes on Chapter 5 of a reading “Working with System Dynamics” by Fullerton

Game Overview

Values present. Loops/arcs that exist. How did loops/arcs manifest in gameplay. What extent did the game embody a formal system.

Cult of the Lamb is a game that plays with the concept of religion, devotion, and faith by letting the player become a cult leader, indoctrinating others to help carry out their goal of appeasing a god named “The One Who Watches” (see Figure 3). The point of this god-like figure is to guide the player through the story to defeat the “heretics” and bring them back to their former glory. This is the key narrative (as far as I know) throughout the game; the narrative loops and arcs act towards this main goal.

Figure 3: An image of the beginning of the game, where The One Who Watches bestows some wisdom on the main character

To advance towards the main character’s goal, the game has two core narrative gameplay loops: base-building to create a space for cultists to generate resources, and dungeon-crawling / roguelike battling to gain additional resources and progress the core storyline. These two loops comprise most of the game, so I would categorize this game under two core genres: action-roguelike and a resource management base-builder. In terms of arcs, there were a few areas that were strictly narrative-based throughout the game (similar to Figure 3 above) that hinted towards player progression and next steps. There were also mini quests and levels (described later in this article) that required trial-and-error, typically requiring the player to restart and build up their resources before going into the next fight.

Regarding base-building (see Figure 4), the player must accumulate followers to help unlock new areas in the dungeon-crawling aspect of the game; without the correct number of followers, the player cannot advance to fight the next “heretic” boss. In addition, followers are required to gain more passive bonuses to make combat easier. This created a positive feedback loop, where maintaining your cult increases power in combat, and combat success brings resources for cult improvement (see Figure 5). However, to maintain these followers, the player must take careful action to feed their members, clean up their members’ poop, and ensuring that faith is high enough to avoid discourse. Furthermore, the game was in real time with a cycling day/night cycle, meaning that cult members progressively got hungrier, even as the player was away on a mission. This proved very challenging as members continued to increase, especially with the scarcity of resources like wood, stone, and food. The large amount of resources and interdependencies between these resources (that remain constant, with further upgrades getting more expensive) would describe this as a complex economy, in the eyes of Fullerton. This meant it required more strategy to figure out where resources should be allocated; if a mission was spent trying to get more followers, they would soon find out that they would require more food to feed those followers. Subsequently, the player might suddenly find out that they need to build more shelters and therefore require more wood and stone.

Figure 4: An image of the base-building aspect of the game, where the player progressively creates more structures to house their cultists

Figure 5: An area of the game where the player can collect permanent combat buffs based on “devotion” from their cult followers.

However, in addition to managing resources back at base, the player would have to go out and adventure on missions (see Figure 6). This was primarily for two separate reasons: (1) as previously mentioned, the story cannot progress unless the player defeats the heretics, and (2) many actions back at base require time to complete, so there is no strong incentive to passively wait around. This created an interesting tension where players must balance immediate cult needs against long-term progression goals. The dungeon-crawling missions provided essential resources like bones for rituals, new followers to expand the cult, and combat upgrades, but leaving the base unattended for extended periods risked follower dissatisfaction, starvation, or death. Additionally, missions required the player to choose between branching rooms among a tree-like structure similar to Slay the Spire or Inscryption, allowing the player to choose between collecting different resources (“wood” room, “stone” room, “food” room, “follower” room, “health” room, etc). These choices force the player to make strategic decisions about mission length and timing; before going into a mission, I’d have to plan with Ngoc about the status of our cult to see what type of resource we would aim to collect the most of. After looping through several sub-levels, there would be a final “boss” level where the player can fight one of the four bosses. After an intense battle (see Boss Introduction.mov for a video recording of a boss introduction), the player would be rewarded with an abundance of resources that would quickly propel them into another phase of the game (see Figure 7).

Figure 6: An image of the beginning of a dungeon, where the players can choose a weapon and skill to use throughout that run.

Figure 7: Image after defeating the first boss of the game, Leshy.

The game also has other smaller loops such as fishing (see Figure 8). These activities became fun for Ngoc and I when the general build/fight narrative loops become monotonous and boring. They helped fulfill smaller quests within the game that helped gather resources to accelerate progress towards the main goal. However, they didn’t seem very important and appeared skippable, acting as additional content.

Figure 8: An image of the fishing game mechanic, where the players can collect fish to fulfill side quests for the “Fisherman”

Aspects I Liked

Some takeaways from this game that I will consider incorporating into my own systems games:

1. I really enjoyed the steady onboarding and introduction of new mechanics, as the first few loops of the game were very incremental. For example, focusing on combat, the first battle primarily taught movement and basic fighting mechanics. The second battle taught special moves. Then, we learned about a variety of different rooms that could be achieved, such as shops, tarot card rooms (for mini buffs throughout one session), and weapon-switching rooms. After a few loops of combat, it became up to the player to develop skill to perform well in subsequent battles.
2. I also enjoyed how interconnected the two loops of the game were. It was impossible to stick to one loop, since progressing in combat required certain levels of followers, and collecting more followers required an abundance of resources gained through combat. Regardless, even if it were feasible to entirely stick to one loop, the time-waiting mechanic of base building gave the player the option to either wait or engage in combat loops. If the player wanted to accelerate their progression (and not just spend time waiting), it was very strongly implied that doing something was always better than doing nothing.
3. This game also made me appreciate the rogue-lite genre more; being able to gain permanent buffs to make extremely hard levels more bearable gave a very strong sense of progression. I enjoyed getting miniscule buffs, even if they were simply a 15% increase to damage, because enough of them made the combat loop easier (and made me satisfied as a player).
4. The art is also very adorable. I liked the customization aspect of the followers. It was funny to have a ton of cyan-colored deers for absolutely no reason.

Conclusion

Overall, the game was fun! I’m typically not a gigantic fan of base-builders, but I enjoyed the cooperative aspect that made the game feel less grindy and more strategic. The game had a great balance of entertaining action (with a great deal of boons and skill trees to traverse) and strategic resource management with trying to maintain your cultists’ happiness and safety. I would 100% recommend this game to anyone who likes base builders OR action roguelikes. Just note that if you do decide to get this game, you may have to set a few hours aside… there’s a lot to learn in the first part of the game, but it gets pretty addicting!