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The comparisons to "Binding of Isaac" are obvious to me, though I'm pretty sure it's two different companies. There are strong comparisons, and I'm going to make them. If that doesn't make sense to you, you can skip a lot of this review, get the overall picture and understand I like the game. Bosh! What efficiency!

So yeah, I like this game. I've clocked in significantly more time on my streaming account. But I marathoned this over the weekend on this account instead of doing work I needed to do from home. I SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF MYSELF. YET I AM NOT.

Your quick summary: It's a twin-stick shooter. Which is to say you look down from above, navigate your character around, dodging attacks, while attacking in any arbitrary direction. You can go left and attack right, or up, or whatever pleases you. One stick is for moving, the other for shooting. Just like Robotron: 2084, if that means anything to you.

Much like "Binding of Isaac" (BoI), it's got a pixely art style. Each map is broken up into a handful of individual combat arena rooms, which usually fit on the screen and rarely take up two. So combats are short, sharp, and can be pretty fast-paced.

A lot of BoI gameplay leans into a lot of bullet-dodging. Most every enemy has an attack that fires shots, be it in a pattern, or at the player, or whathaveyou. So awareness of the whole screen and good positioning was key. Here, in this game, there are fewer bullet attacks, per se (one boss notoriously excepted), but the enemies are more likely to go engage you in melee. Since most of your attacks are also melee, that's fine.

In terms of gameplay itself, it comes off with markedly more nuance: your character has much more agility, much more rapid movement, requires appreciating your weapons' reaches, and deciding if you can stunlock an enemy long enough that you can finish them, or disengaging before you get hit by that or another foe. Unlike BoI, you've also got a dodgeroll move with a fairly generous invulnerability window, so it's possible to disengage pretty quickly if you're observant.

That said, healing is a limited resource that requires the random generator to be working in your favour, so the best bet is to not get hit in the first place.

BoI aims to be kind of gruesome and, if you will, really edgy. It fits the theme of the game in a way, but that sort of bleakness is taxing. This game generally comes off as cute, except when it doesn't. Animals are smiling and cheerful, and then can look scared, or hurt, terrified, disgusted. They murder each other. They get swallowed by eldritch horrors. Many of them are coprophiliacs, some few ask them to make a "special meal". Terrible things happen to them, and sometimes you're the agent of that terrible thing... if you want to. You can be nice, but the world isn't.

It doesn't get really graphic about it, at least. Dismantling a corpse might make little giblets fly out, "hams" as the missus would put it. The more gruesome things are implied rather than explicitly displayed. But even still, invest the slightest thought about it and it's kind of perturbing. That, in my lofty opinion, makes it far worse than BoI, which just tries to slap you in the face with it.

The Twitch integration is amusing, where viewers can sign on and make a critter look however they please (subject to what you've unlocked), and then puts their banner atop the critter so you always know it's them. If you like your viewers, this makes the game personal. If you're callous, well... hah, you can always make them fight each other to the death should it please, or turn one into meatshakes to serve up to the others. Later, I'm told, will be a coop mode.

I haven't finished it yet, and I'll likely be streaming this game off-schedule, mostly during the weekends. There's room for more signons. In that public game, I can't help but be nice. In my private game, well... you probably don't want to be there. Pop on by, the missus and I are usually up to something droll when we're on. http://twitch.tv/fdejeuner. I always put the links down here because advertising is hard, and I like people who like to read (especially what I write), so clearly you're my kind of person.

I forgot! When the game isn't about slapping enemies upside the head, there's a whole commune to take care of. Raising crops, cooking basic meals, sweeping up after the little ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, building up buildings for them, giving sermons. It's one part violence fighting, and one part farming sim. Over time, a lot of the farming stuff can be automated so you don't need to do it yourself, though the early all-manual parts are a bit irksome.

Anyway, the missus enjoyed watching me streaming it, and I'm having a fine enough time playing it. And if you're given over to mulling things, I'm sure there's a lot in here you could think about. That's worth the price of admission right there.

I love this game sm. The art, the music, the npc interactions, the gameplay, oohlala. Leading a cult is surprisingly fun. Would love if I could have a kid of my own though
Can't believe I worked hard to get all achievements for a game but apparently I did

this games a little iffy with me. its 2 parts. animal rossing town building and the binding of isaac rougelike segments just for some comparisons. now the animal crossing part is fun. raising your cult, sacrifices, marriage, getting cult members, and other fun ceremonies, but i feel the rougelike part falls flat. the fun things about tboi and enter the gungeon is how batsh*t crazy it gets and how overpowered it gets. the thousands of wacky items and weapons make it fun because that basically means every run will be unique! what does cult of the lamb have..? Uhh.. you can get a sword that does 6 damage instead of 4! ..howww fun…… as an animal crossing clone, 8/10, as a rougelike..? probably half that. but i still recommend it cus the cult building part is seriously fun. overall 6/10

When you see a "cute and artsy" game with an "Overwhelmingly Positive" rating it's always a gamble. It MAY be something amazing, but more often than not is just "artsy", for lack of a better word, with little to no substance and boring gameplay.

I'm happy to say that this is not the case with this game.

Perhaps one of the biggest pleasant surprises was seeing that the Binding of Isaac-style portion of the game isn't a separate thing you go do while the rest of the game goes on pause - your cult continues to exist and things continue to happen when you are away, encouraging you to be efficient. At the same time, what you do while on a "crusade", as the game calls them, matters - items and followers you find will return to your base, including every single bone of every enemy in the crusade, and depending on how your crusade goes, your followers may think differently of you!

The cult management component is simply excellent. While there are quite a few things that constantly require your attention at first, it's very possible to build your cult to be essentially self-sustaining, allowing you to spend more time admiring your work and interacting with your followers. Even later you get the ability to automate the majority of things required to maintain happiness in your cult, allowing you to go on even longer crusades with better rewards, if you want. Your freedom from repetitive tasks feels earned, yet those tasks never feel like a grind!

And despite all the accommodations you provide to your followers, you really do feel like you're leading a CULT and not a happy hippie charity. Followers are a key resource in the game, but in the end - they are a resource. You can gaslight them into trusting you with bribes, take their prayers and convert them to power, ascend them when they are old, or sacrifice them when convenient. You can feed them toxic shrooms to poison their minds or install propaganda speakers to make them work faster. Should they dissent - you can lock them in and brainwash them until they give up their hopeless ideological struggle. Or you can just straight up murder them. If your followers trust you enough, you can get away with anything, all while thinking that they are happy being in your cult.


Everything is beautifully animated, and the soundtrack is very simple, yet incredibly catchy. Runs perfectly on both my Linux PC and the Steam Deck. Performance is great, but the Deck does heat up a bit if you want to use "High" settings.

This game is so much fun and very addicting!! The animals are cute with a devilish twist and im ok with it, lol

I got the game after watching my bf play it, and now I might soon be addicted. Do not send help.

I wanted to play this game for a while and after seeing all the glowing reviews (and sale price) I thought was time to pull out my wallet. For the first 10 hours or so it was a blast! Sacrificing followers, making them eat their friends the combat is fun and fluid; the art style looks great and the setting is unique. But after my first 10 hours or so the parts that I enjoyed started to get dull. I stopped playing a few weeks ago and have yet to play it since because of how boring the gameplay became. I would have refunded if I could.

a cult classic

If Animal Crossing had monsters and murder