Genre: Lovecraftian Colony Simulation
Developer: Crazy Goat Games
Publisher: Crytivo
Release Date: October 21st, 2024
Edited by AlexKnight2005
Worshippers of Cthulhu is a Lovecraftian-themed city builder by the developers over at Crazy Goat Games and published by Crytivo. Before you read on, if you find ritual sacrifice, blood, bodily harm, cannibalism, and other such concepts triggering, I suggest you dont even look at this game, even if you’re a fan of the genre. Or even continue reading this review. The Old Ones will take you into their sweet embrace if you don’t know what Lovecraftian means. If you do, you know what to expect. Lovecraftian refers to HP Lovecraft lore and books about cosmic horrors called the Old Ones. The most famous of which is Cuthulu. Feel free to research more if you want to educate yourself.
Moving onto the game. If you’re familiar with the genre, it plays similarly to every other game and adds its own unique mechanics. The game switches traffic jams and such for blood draining, ritual sacrifice, and much more. You take on the cult leader/mayor role as you begin your quest to awaken Cuthulu. You must grow your colony by slowly taking over the nearby islands and capturing or recruiting the residents. Those who are captured can be sacrificed in rituals for the cult, such as summoning a monster to attack other islands. Other than your standard resources such as farm crops, lumber, etc., your cult runs on faith generated from your followers and eldritch Favor gained from rituals.
Faith and Favor are used for everything to unlock buildings, rituals, and even building said unlocked buildings. It also takes one feature used in other games of the genre and expounds on it. I am talking about the favored professions of your citizens. In Worshippers of Cthulhu, you can do a ritual by carving a symbol into one of your citizen’s backs, and upon completion, it gives you a choice of two new professions for them. The game does a great job of projecting the dark world of the mythos and blending it into a great game.
The music and sound effects lend to this, as do the graphics. I ran into no bugs with the game, which is surprising with early-access games. I particularly enjoyed the sounds when carving the symbols into your followers, as they sounded fairly realistic. So, all in all, the bones of a great city builder are here for an early-access game.
From the world-building and features revolving around the Cthulu mythos to the use of the standard features of the genre, it delivers through and through. The price tag of twenty-five dollars is more than worth it. It is currently only available on Steam, and there are no plans to port it to consoles or mobile. I highly look forward to seeing what they add to the game as they progress towards the 1.0 release.
Pros:
- Great Lovecraftian game
- Unique entry to the genre
- Can change citizens’ preferred professions
- Good tutorials
Cons:
- No accessbility options
