【Lena Paul - The Next Morning】

My children won't learn to cook.

I know it is Lena Paul - The Next Morningwithin their capabilities. My flock of followers in Cult of the Lambhave literally erected enough buildings to build a settlement. They've tilled and tended the land, producing a growing stockpile of fresh vegetables to keep us fed for months. They've even refined gold nuggets into usable coins, then melted them down into gold bars. Chopping pumpkin and stewing trout shouldn't be beyond them.

And yet somehow it is always left to me, a harried single parent of 20, to rush home from work and prepare nutritious meals for my large adult children every day. 

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Well, approximately 20. It depends on whether anyone's died recently.

Released this August by indie developer Massive Monster, Cult of the Lambis an adorably macabre, eldritch-themed combination of roguelike and base building games. You play as a literal sacrificial lamb who has been resurrected by an imprisoned god and tasked with establishing a cult. Ostensibly, the purpose of this cult is to help you defeat The One Who Waits' four siblings and free him from confinement.

In actuality, I'm more preoccupied with ensuring my ersatz foster children are safe, warm, and well-fed.

Making sure my cult get their daily recommended serving of vegetables. Credit: Mashable

Do you have a moment to talk?

Though it may sound glamorous, running a cult isn't all ritual sacrifices and demonic summonings. Before you can even get to that, you need to take care of the basics: food, shelter, and hygiene. Your followers won't be able to dance around a bonfire for very long if they aren't in good health, after all.

Fighting your way through Cult of the Lamb's dungeons is therefore as much to collect resources as it is to dispatch of the four Bishops and their acolytes. It's basically the cultist's version of working to support your family. Lumber, stone, coins, food, and new recruits are all necessary to set up a strong base for your cult, with more dungeons unlocking as you gain followers. 

SEE ALSO: The horrors of 'Animal Crossing's secret cults and prison camps

Fortunately, you're randomly assigned a weapon and special ability at the start of each run, which can be swapped out during your crusade as you find more. I personally favour the speed of a sword over a heavy hammer, for example. 

This pool of weapons can be upgraded between runs by delivering sermons to your congregation and unlocking a skill tree. You can also draw tarot cards during your run to give you random boosts, such as extra health or poisoned attacks. Battles don't feel insurmountable provided you vigorously utilise dodging, but they do require your full attention.

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I didn't expect 'Cult of the Lamb' to leave me torn between work and family responsibilities.

Unfortunately, the big babies back at home are a formidable distraction. Frequent updates on cult events preoccupy both my mind and the left side of my screen, with notifications popping up to let me know that my kids are ready for a sermon, starving, or have died. (It's OK — I've learnt necromancy.)

As such, I can never stay away for long. I've even been forced to abandon promising runs, because if I don't return home to do maintenance my children will just lie down and starve to death beside fully clogged toilets.

I didn't expect Cult of the Lamb to leave me torn between work and family responsibilities.

Taking care of a cult is already a full-time job. Credit: Mashable

Non-ritual sacrifices

Don't get me wrong, I love my kids. Whenever I take in someone new I don't change a thing about them, letting them keep their names and appearances because they deserve to be loved for who they are. I'd just like to be able to wholeheartedly pursue my career without everyone dying.

Running a nursery for incompetent adults also gets easier once you've gathered enough resources to establish and fully upgrade your cult's housing, lavatories, and farmhouses. At this point your community becomes largely self-sustainable, meaning quitting your dungeon diving job and becoming a full-time stay-at-home parent becomes a viable option for those so inclined.

Still, you'd think between the two dozen of them they could take care of a few meals, or at least sort out the bathroom situation. Surely they should be competent enough to identify raw ingredients as edible materials capable of staving off starvation. 

But no. While I can send some of my followers on missions to gather meat, while others stay home to work the farm, all the actual meal prep always falls to me. They simply can't recognise food unless it has been cooked. (Incidentally, while you can build a prison, tabernacle, and temple in Cult of the Lamb, there is no option to build a schoolhouse.)

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On the other hand, my kids will also eat pretty much anything as long as it's been cooked, including the faeces and flesh of their friends. So in that respect it's probably for the best that I'm in charge of menu planning.

My large adult cultists

I would accuse my followers of weaponised incompetence. Who wants to cook meals or clean the toilets if they can avoid it? But surely they wouldn't take it to such an extreme that it literally kills them. The only possible conclusion is that my collection of misfit cultists are genuinely unable to feed themselves.

Though perhaps that's what they want me to think. After all, they do know that I know necromancy.

These aren't the only issues plaguing my idyllic cult life, at least on Xbox. With so many cultists running around, my screen regularly stutters, which has caused me to miss my timing and burn food more than once. Sometimes buildings stop functioning, forcing me to demolish them entirely and rebuild. And one of my children only has a blank space where their name should be. I've heard reports that the PC release is smoother, though I haven't had the opportunity to try it myself.

I had no immediate plans to become a parent prior to this. I had more pressing concerns, namely dying in a ritual sacrifice.

Yet like any parent, I've learnt to work around these obstacles, focusing on the joys of parenthood and letting them offset the hardships.

I had no immediate plans to become a parent prior to this. I had more pressing concerns, namely dying in a ritual sacrifice. But sometimes these things just happen, and you have to roll with it. When life gives you followers, start a cult.

Cult of the Lambis available now on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC, and Nintendo Switch.

Topics Gaming