A few days ago Cult of the Lamb was released, the new rogelike representative and management of Massive Monster and it’s already a success. Like almost all Devolver Digital games, creativity is the main premise, each element must be carefully selected and have a simple but very telling graphics section. But when we get into the gameplay, which is really important, we realize that the creativity does not stop, and the developers themselves tell us about it.
In a recent interview, the developers talked about the gameplay and the challenges of combining two totally different genres. And it’s that roguelikes aren’t occasionally related to resource management; we usually get rid of everything we have when we die, so running a cult and sustaining it with resources doesn’t seem like the easiest combination to pull off.
The first big challenge we had to face was find the right idea. We knew from the start that we wanted to combine roguelike combat with the resource gathering of a game simulator.
A first prototype focused on boy scouts and the creation of magic weapons, then it was the turn of a sandbox where we could ‘create your favorite hell in the afterlife’ so we think of a god with a tribe to grow and prosper on the back of a space whale
. I do not hide that we met a lot of resistance before finally arriving at the project of a little lamb giving life to a cult of evil-worshipping animals.
Cult of the Lamb, the meeting of two totally opposite genres
One of the solutions they came up with for the Cult of the Lamb combination was to create a day and night cycle to force the player to return to their camp, in addition to creating self-contained strategies for worshipers to the sect, being an obligation to keep your followers active, but happy.
The next challenge was the biggest, which is to make the two souls of the game work in harmony. Traditionally, roguelikes have been survival-based, with activities that require you to adventure deeper and deeper through rifts that make the hero stronger. But we also wanted to implement a day/night cycle to ensure that cult members have their own daily routines and needs to fulfill. Achieving harmony between these two things, and achieving it in a simple and easily accessible way for players, took a lot of work and a lot of testing on the part of our team.
