Worshippers of Cthulhu.

During Halloween this year, I chose to stream some horror demos on Twitch. One of these demos was:

Worshippers of Cthulhu.

This game is a city builder and cult simulator, set in the Cthulhu Mythos pioneered by H.P. Lovecraft.

Worshippers of Cthulhu is also in Early Access, meaning it is not complete, but you can still buy it. The developers Crazy Goat Games will probably add and/or change some things, so if you don't like that, wait until full release.

Now as I only played the demo, and I didn't have time to finish that, this is purely a first impression, not a review.

The game starts with you, the High Priest, and your small cult crashing your ship on the shores of what could be a part of R'lyeh, the home of Cthulhu itself, or an island somehow connected to R'lyeh. I'm not really sure.

First you have to direct your followers to gather basic materials and start building your settlement. A core mechanic is that your cultists won't work if they don't have a house, so building homes is important. Then they need food, and they need somewhere to store surplus materials. All these buildings need roads and access to the raw materials to farm and gather. So far it is a basic but very competent city builder. New buildings are red until placed in an appropriate area, then they turn green and you can confirm the build. Nothing new here, but I appreciate a developer who doesn't feel the need to reinvent the wheel just to be special. Having played a few city builders in my time, I felt right at home with the controls immediately. At first, I did miss the fact that you can turn the map, making it easier to place things behind large buildings, but it is there.

Then comes the cult part. In order to unlock new buildings, you have to give offerings to your god, which also eats up raw materials. You need to construct religious buildings to boost the fanaticism of your cultists, you can hold rituals and carve symbols into the flesh of your cult, allowing you to essentially re-roll their traits. Every cultist has one job they really like to do and will be better at. The challenge comes from having, say, three cultists who like gathering clams, but you only have need for two. Do you place the third in a job they won't be as capable in, or do you try to re-roll their abilities? That is up to you, you're the High Priest.

Later on, new jobs become available, you can summon horrors to attack ships and (I think) other settlements, I barely had time to get to the horror summoning part.

Besides all this, there are random events that pop up, allowing you to make a choice. Some choices have obvious consequences, others have unknown effects, that can be good or bad. I love these choices, that add so much, and allow you to affect your needs a little bit. If you're up to the ears in cultists, but need more faith, sacrificing some newcomers might be what you want, but if the situation is reversed, new cultist-citizens might be worth more.

I do wish you could rename the cultist-citizens as well as your settlement. This would be useful both for remembering who does what and because as a streamer, it's always good to rename things and people after viewers. That is not an issue for normal gamers though, just something I personally want.

As fist impressions go, Worshippers of Cthulhu is incredibly promising, with a great atmosphere. I had so much fun playing and I can't wait to get my hands on it for a proper playthrough. Worshippers of Cthulhu is a game worth keeping and eye or a tentacle on, if the Mythos and/or city builders are your thing!

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week!