Cult of the Lamb director explains the game's "evil" design philosophy
"up to you if you want to be evil"
Cult of the Lamb is a roguelike dungeon crawler/sim game full of cute little animals that are yours to cherish or torment as you wish. Essentially, the game is a cult simulator, putting the player in the shoes of an immoral cult leader. In a new interview with PC Gamer, one of the game’s directors, Julian Wilton, explains how this design philosophy came to be.
According to the interview, Cult of the Lamb went through a few different iterations before becoming what it is today. At one point it centered around an actual god, and later on it was about a demon creating their own version of Hell. At some point, the devs came to an important realization: that being cruel to your followers was more compelling if there was also an option to treat them better.
“A lot of the design was trying to encourage the player to be evil. Without clearly saying, ‘You, go! Go be evil!’ But like, ‘Hey, if you go sacrifice this guy, you’re gonna get a bunch of experience and can level up. Or you can do it another way, but this is going to be the quickest way. So, you know, up to you if you want to be evil.’ That’s what we’re trying to do.”
“Players will do it. You usually have some guy you don’t like. I think that’s why it works. I don’t like this guy. Get rid of him.”
Cult of the Lamb certainly makes for a great place to express your inner cult leader and torture some cute, fuzzy animals (just try to curb those urges in real life). For more behind the scenes insight into the making of the game, check out the full interview.
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