Alexis Kennedy’s Cultist Simulator Funded in 12 Hours
If you like the Sunless Sea’s (and upcoming Sunless Sky) and Fallen London’s dark and weird setting, then Cultist Simulator: Behold Our End might just be something that will tickle some money out of your wallet.
The game was fully funded after a mere 12 hours and has wildly exceeded its goal with over 26 days to go. It’s safe to say Alexis Kennedy the creator of Fallen London and creative director of Sunless Sea (who has recently been writing parts of the next Dragon Age game for BioWare) will have a lot of resources to play with to bring this game to life.
The game is set in the 1920s and puts you into the shoes of a cultist. It’s a nice twist from the usual formula, where cultists are antagonists and, often, little more than fodder for the main characters to dispatch. In this narrative, crafting card game, you’re worshiping, petitioning or merely placating the mysterious gods named the Horus for your own inscrutable ends, be it power, love, knowledge or mere greed. While you’re chasing impossible dreams of your patron(s?), you must keep the mundane authorities at bay.
While Kennedy admits Lovecraftian mythos is one of the inspirations for the game, Cultist Simulator will focus more on perilous longing than sanity-rending horrors.
Kennedy has stated he’s not a fan of stretch goals and would rather spend his time making the game people have funded rather than overstretching with stretch (heh) goals. The only thing he’s possibly interested is making a physical copy of the game’s tarot cards but only if he gets enough leeway with £100,000 pounds of funding.
Estimated date of delivery is May 2018, and you can reserve a copy of the game for £10, where higher-tier pledges get your name or a pseudonym included in the game and some designer notes, artwork and other digital goodies about the game. For mere £5,000, you can have Kennedy get a tattoo of a piece of game art: a bargain if I ever saw one!