I stayed up too late. I had strange dreams. I babbled to those close to me, as they laughed nervously. Work became a clock, every second ticking closer to when I could go back. A necessary evil, to provide me with the resources I would need to continue my journey in that incomprehensible space. It was a stage, with the curtains lowered but fluttering in an intangible breeze, flashing hints of light and color.
Cultist Simulator is a game about learning how to play Cultist Simulator. It is a game with simple Functions, such as Work, Dream, Study, and Explore, into which you place Cards that represent Things in your Life. Once a card has been placed in a Function, a timer begins, and upon completion, vomits up an output, positive or negative. For example, putting a Reason card into your Work Function allows you to secure a job doing clerical work, which you can plug back into Work to get Money cards. Having a job is important, because a devilish Function called Expenses continuously gobbles up your money, much like real life. But that’s about the limit of the Functions and Cards that make clear sense together. When you examine a Function, it only gives you vague hints as to what it will do with your cards. Sometimes it is obvious, most times arcane.
It is a game of trial and error. A game of false starts, cascading failures, and improbable success. It is, functionally, a roguelike, but one wherein the failure state seems canonical. Every time you fail to achieve the inscrutable objectives of the game, whether through imprisonment, death, or even finding satisfaction elsewhere in life, that feels like a real person. A person who had the faintest brush with the supernatural, and would later look back upon those times with their brow lightly furrowed, not trusting their own memory.
In this and many other ways, the game’s name is intriguing. Many games purport to be simulators, many games ask you to Play a Role, but there is often sense of distance, of removal. In some great game experiences, the narrative, the characterization, the world can feel so personal and evocative that you will feel genuine emotional responses, as though you were the character. Cultist Simulator had a unique effect on me, distinct from that. Cultist Simulator made the rest of my life feel like Functions with Timers, most of which I had to deal with in some way or another so that I could get on with the exciting stuff, like playing Cultist Simulator. I obsessively pored over a game where a character obsessively pores over things.
Cultist Simulator does simulate being a Cultist, but in me it did something more than simulate. I became a Cultist of the Cult of Cultist Simulator. Is that a thing you can become? Perhaps no more or less than anything else to become a Cultist of.
It has been a few weeks since I have booted up Cultist Simulator. I have returned to games more familiar to me. But I still think about Cultist Simulator, with my brow lightly furrowed. What have I become? What more could I have become? Could I go back there? Could I go further?
If someone was to ask me if Cultist Simulator was a good game, I would tell them,
“Yes,”
“But only if you want to become a Cultist.”
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