Cult of the Lamb

Cult of the Lamb can be described in many ways – The Binding of Isaac meets Don’t Starve, or ActRaiser as a roguelike are two of the most accurate – but none of them fully capture its unique identity. Its claim to fame isn’t just that it lets you found a cult with resurrection, cannibalism, and/or drug-induced spiritual experiences as major rituals. It’s that it has you do it in the role of an adorable cartoon lamb empowered by an eldritch god to travel on one-person crusades in between holding sermons and cleaning up literal shit. That’s great news from a creativity standpoint, but how does it actually play? Honestly, it could be better. In particular, there’s a pervasive sense of “going through the motions” to much of the gameplay. But it turns out that as long as nothing is completely broken, a game can be decently supported by creativity alone.

Nothing is particularly disciplined or balanced here – it’s very easy to keep your followers in high spirits most of the time – but that just means you’re free to use all of the tools at your disposal, because hey, it might be fun to see what happens when you command two followers to fight to the death. The crowded art style makes it difficult to discern hitboxes, but it also allows for lively animation and a striking aesthetic. The dungeon-crawling is fairly basic, but that just ensures that it can be completed without relying on luck. This is a Hades-style roguelike, after all, so there’s a story with a definitive ending that you’re expected to reach. The story is serviceable; it has an incredibly obvious twist, but it also has strong writing and memorably odd characters. Lastly, the naturalistic soundtrack is terrific and serves to highlight the unexpectedly forceful sound design even more.