ElvenBenzene Cult of the Lamb Review

I expected much more from this game. The combat is solid, albeit simplistic at times, and the art style and presentation are charming enough. My main issue is the game's many interesting mechanics just do not work together, especially in the late game. The game just starts to fall apart, even if you play your cards perfectly. Once you reach late game, you will regularly find yourself setting up your cult before going on a pilgrimage, and have multiple cult members die before you finish, with no indicator that they are on the brink of death. This alone breaks the game's core loop of recruitment and sacrifice. You can play everything perfectly, and 3 cultists will starve despite the fact that they were fully fed when you left. There is no counterplay to this, no indicator of when this will occur. And even if there was, it would only mean you are forced to abort nearly every pilgrimage anyways, grinding the game to a halt. The cult management aspects are needlessly tedious, you are required to constantly maintain chains to refine materials, which are obnoxious to maintain. The cult never reaches any form of self-sufficiency, despite the game clearly being designed around requiring it, because if you are not there to feed them, they will starve, and starvation is inevitable even if you play well. Overall, it's another "quirky" indie game that fails to hit the mark. With only a few small changes, it could have avoided many of it's problems, but as is the game is a disappointment.