Evil Cult

The game is easy enough to master, surprisingly addictive and has a lot of replay value. Rounds do feel a bit short, the typical game length is around 10-15 minutes. I think 'winning' is a little easy once you've extended enough, perhaps a longer ritual duration and some sort of debuff/opponent buff while it's running? Maybe the ritual can increase awareness dramatically? I've never felt like I needed to bother with the lesser ritual either. Not sure what the solution is, but it would be nice to have more to do once your cult grows, and I think rituals might be key. Defensive/offensive rituals, unique cult rituals, etc.

[b][i]Evil Cult[/i][/b] gives the player control over a [i]Cult[/i] which tries to take over key figures in society to spread its influence and complete the [i]Final Ritual[/i], before any of the competing cults. [b][i]Generators[/i][/b] generate resources, making them an obvious prime target for expansion, yet the easier (cheaper) to influence [i]Adepts[/i] increase the probability of gathering [i]Virgins[/i], which serve as resource wildcards and are of course necessary for rituals as a sacrifice. [b][i]Sects[/i][/b] within the cult allow for some optional micro-management. However, the player's attention is mainly directed at the expansion on the map, resource balance, and awareness of the [i]Investigator[/i]. The [b]Investigator[/b] is a computer-controlled invisible entity that tries to sabotage the Cult. Every cult in the game has to deal with their own Investigator and balance how many resources should be invested into battling them directly or whether expansion is more important and defending the resource Generators is enough or if Investigators should in fact be avoided at all cost and all cult activity is put on pause until awareness is minimized. Experienced players will change their Investigator counter-strategy over the course of one game, mixing them within one turn even. As a comparison: the Investigator is somewhat reminiscent of the [i]Robber[/i] in the board game (Settlers of) Catan. The ability to exchange two resources for one other also reminds of the trading system familiar to Catan players. Depending on map size, difficulty setting and luck, one match can last [b]6-30 minutes[/b] (or up to around 60 on huge maps). Pro: [list][*]The perfect Casual (or even "Roguelite") 4X game for me because: [list][*]Early game is usually very short, reaching the tense part of the game quickly [*]Sects can be assigned a Task but will pick a reasonable one automatically if player prefers not to micro-manage [*]I'm the kind of player who enjoys early game in Heroes of Might and Magic, Civilization or Master of Orion but loses interest when micro management takes over the game. The player's attention in Evil Cult stays on the game map nearly all of the time, that's the way I like it.[/list] [*]Very atmospheric music, which for me creates a feeling reminiscent of Deus Ex and Uplink [*]Many configuration options for custom games (number of nodes, size of map, various probabilities...) [/list] Notes [list][*]There are sound effects, some of which one has to get used to (ASMR-like breath on node takeover, laughter on failure). Other sounds strongly remind me of HOMM 2 and Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space. [*]Shortcuts like [ESC] and [Space] allow closing menus and pop-ups quickly [*]There is a basic interactive tutorial but if you don't remember your current task you'll have to try to restart to see the last instruction again (or click around exploratively to hopefully take the intended next step) [/list] Con: [list][*]I dislike the bright puzzle cartoon color scheme of the default game and prefer the [classic mode], which you have to pick before starting the game. Some colors (resources, map background image) can be customized (modded?) rather easily by editing image files in the game's folder though. [*]Custom games don't have any tried-and-tested pre-made templates except for the default custom configuration [/list]

Disliked: Basic required strategies are not really made clear in the tutorial/manual. I was almost ready to put this down after several attempts at playing it. Liked: Once I was able to find a simple play through video, important hotkeys (toggle resource indications) and basic strategy of balancing resource capture with fighting the investigators, the game became playable. Establishing networks of followers to prevent resource capture is a nice twist. Overall, I am now very much enjoying this game. Would love for additional longer running gameplay modes.

Basically if you like clickers? if so congradulation as this game is like those manual excel spreadsheet clickers from 2000. Internally trade your own resource points, remove rival connections by blanket bombing nodes. thats it. thats the game.

It's a good bases... but once you get the hand of it... .. meh...

Very fun game. I enjoyed it quite a bit. Here is some gameplay for those curious how the game works: www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbTf8_f4FHk

A nice game, I keep coming back to it. The rules aren't hard to learn, but the emergent gameplay is fun.

Evil Cult is a relatively simple, but decently *enthralling* game about several cults fighting to be the first to enact their eldritch endgame, be it exerting control over the minds of all humans through the media, or bringing the force of a cthulhu-like entity to bear against the world, while avoiding the notice of investigators who will devote themselves to the destruction of your cult

An extremely difficult, often mechanically esoteric game for burning away 10 minutes at a time. Get it on sale and you will be happy. It's by no means advance or deep as a Lovecraft or even cult game but is strangely addicting. Would really like to see it come to Android, it is definitely more a time killer. 7/10