The Indie video game market is pumping out Game of the Year contenders left, right, and center right now. This year alone, players have been able to enjoy stellar titles like Stray, Tunic, Sifu, Bear and Breakfast, and OlliOlli World, each of which offers a wholly unique experience that may have been inspired by some of the industry's best, but manages to carve out its own distinctive identity. Cult of the Lamb is the latest example of this.
Releasing just a week ago, Cult of the Lamb is equal parts roguelite dungeon-crawler, and city-builder, management sim, all packaged in a charmingly grim, bloody cartoon aesthetic, and topped with a bow of tongue-in-cheek dark humor. Cult of the Lamb is one of the most unique games of the year, and though its development team was small, the amount of content within the game, and the sheer complexity of some mechanics, is truly impressive. One such mechanic is the game's Doctrine system, a feature which allows players to improve the traits of their cult followers.
Cult of the Lamb's Doctrine Mechanic
Over the course of Cult of the Lamb's first hour, players will be gradually introduced to a slew of mechanics. Though the mechanics themselves are actually quite complex, each requiring various resources or completed objectives, Cult of the Lamb does a great job of introducing each one naturally, and slowly, only ever presenting one new mechanic at a time and letting the player get used to it before another one rears its head.
Toward the end of Cult of the Lamb's first hour or so, players should be introduced to the Doctrine system. Essentially, this Doctrine system allows players to upgrade their followers, granting them trait bonuses based on five distinct categories. To unlock a new Doctrine, players must collect three Commandment Tablet pieces. Though these can be found while venturing into Cult of the Lamb's procedurally-generated dungeons, the easiest way to obtain Commandment Tablet pieces is by leveling up a follower's Devotion, represented by the red bar above their head. Followers can in turn be leveled up via Gifts, Blessings, side missions, and Worship. Once the follower has leveled up, the player will receive a Tablet piece.
Upon getting three Commandment Tablet pieces, the player can head to their temple and click on the "Crown" option. Here, they just need to click on the Doctrine button, and they'll be presented with five categories to choose from, encompassing Afterlife, Work and Worship, Sustenance, Law and Order, and Possessions, each of the vital facets that go into managing a cult. Clicking on a category will bring up two traits for the player to choose from, often being two options that are opposing each other. For example, choosing the Afterlife category will present the player with a choice of either the "Ritual of Resurrection" Doctrine, or the "Funeral" Doctrine, with the former allowing the player to bring back a dead follower and the latter unlocking a Ritual that allows the followers to honor the dead, raising the shared Faith pool by 20.
Each of Cult of the Lamb's Doctrine categories have five levels of progression, meaning that players can end the game with 25 traits equipped at the same time. However, with every new level of Doctrine progression comes the choice of two options, and as the player's cult expands and the task of managing all its members becomes more difficult, this decision on which traits to choose will become more and more important.
Cult of the Lamb is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
