Cult of the Lamb

I really like the gameplay loop of this game, but I felt like I didn't have control over how I wanted to play. the only control of the game difficulty is basic settings (easy, medium, ect.) I found it hard for me to challenge myself, which is a bummer because I really like the artstyle and vibe that the game has. an improvement to this would be to have ways to change the amount of health enemies have, how fast their attacks are, how many there are, among other variables. I also don't like that you are forced to sacrifice followers to 100% the game. I don't like sacrificing them, and I think there should always be a second option that you can take to avoid sacrifice. I didn't want to be cut off from endgame content because of the way I like to play. I really like this game, but those are the main issues I had when I played

[b]Overall:[/b] This game could be a lot better if it wasn't so Grindy. Cult of the Lamb tries to juggle a simple combat system, and an overly resource expensive settlement system. This game's primary player engagement comes from regularly being behind on resources, and being stunted by Farmville timed gated gathering features. As a player, your hope is that you'll eventually plateau and stop being broke in required resources, but that never happens because the game is designed to burn through what you collect. Whether they be: Cult Members, Items, Buildings, Favor, Hunger, Health, and all basic resources. I’d recommend different games for settlement building: City Skylines, Planet Crafter, Age of Empires, Fallout Shelter (Yeah even that). Id also recommend different roguelites for Combat: Hades, Hades 2 You can read more of my specific gripes with the game below: [b]Combat:[/b] The combat in this game is very basic. The weapons all feel very samey with the only difference is some weapons actually do enough damage to make combat rewarding. Lots of times it takes 5-8 hits to destroy even the weakest enemies. To state it plainly: you can unlock every single combat upgrade and your player Character will still struggle to do any respectable damage. But Weirdly bosses are super easy to take out cause you typically don’t need to deal with multiple enemies. The game also time gates your advancement during combat. If you are gone for too long, your settlers will either die, rebel, starve, or leave. Preventing your player from forward progress. [b]Settlement:[/b] You will always be missing a resource you need to progress. There are eventually limited options to send villagers out to get resources that you usually collect during combat, but the villagers seemingly have a 50% chance of dying, which means you'll either have to resurrect them (for a resource cost) or work on training up a new villager to their level (Time Cost). Also, all Villagers eventually die, meaning that you can spend all your time gaining their loyalty and leveling them for them to pass away. Villagers also die, faster than you can resurrect them. Sure, you can gain more followers, but they always start from level 1, which constantly makes you feel like you are being reset. There are gifts that you can give villagers, but if they die with the gift it's not obvious how to get it back, you could dig up their grave, or remove it from their body…but to add the item back into your inventory requires greater than 5-7 button inputs, tasks/rituals, and some backtracking back and forth on the settlement map. It’s not clear. The building you erect will sometimes fall down and need repaired using the resource you collect. This is a minor inconvenience but it's still something added to the game that I'm not sure is needed to enhance the fun. [b]ArtStyle:[/b] The art style and vibe is great, I have no complaints with it. A lot of really solid effort went into making this game feel unique. It has some similar vibes to Hollow Knight, but Cult of the Lamb is its own thing. [b]Minigames:[/b] The minigames in this game don't really re-enforce the gameplay loop, they just feel like extra little things that you can play while your settlement wastes away without you being there to nanny it. The fishing minigame isn't particularly fun, it's very sensitive and from first impressions it's not really something you could/would want to master. The Dice game is interesting, but also a bit plain. [b]Plot:[/b] Spoilers for where I'm at: I've defeated 4 of the big bads, and haven't beaten the 5th. Overall the story isn't really gripping to me. There's no investment, you just hit the bad guys until they're dead and then do it again for the next big bad – Rougelite style. [b]Steamdeck:[/b] Weirdly this game has more loading screens for me on my Steamdeck OLED than cyberpunk does. For being a 2D sprite game it doesn't seem to be optimized out of the box (as I haven't changed any settings) also this game also seems to be a pretty big battery hog. I’ll still likely play the game a bit more, to see if anything changes but broadly, I think this game was something to check out and then to let gather dust.