With Cult of the Lamb set to obtain its huge, free Relics of the Outdated Religion replace quickly, we took a while to sit down down with the staff behind 2022’s cutesy however sinister roguelike recreation. PCGamesN spoke to developer Large Monster’s Jay Armstrong and James Pearmain at WASD 2023 concerning the upcoming replace, the sport’s adorably unnerving artwork type, accessibility instruments, and the significance of Twitch streaming to Cult of the Lamb’s success.
Relics of the Outdated Religion is the primary huge replace for Cult of the Lamb, and it’s going to be free. Armstrong tells us, “We had been so blown away by how many individuals love the sport – we’ve by no means had this earlier than. We’re simply so completely satisfied and grateful.” The staff sees this and the second deliberate free replace, loosely scheduled for later this yr, as a option to give again to followers.
“I believe it’s actually necessary for us to only make it one of the best recreation attainable,” Pearmain explains, pointing to different huge names within the roguelike style as inspirations. “We actually need to have a look at video games like The Binding of Isaac and Don’t Starve – how the sport is now in comparison with what it was at launch, we would like Cult of the Lamb to suit alongside these sorts of video games.”
As for what followers can anticipate from the replace, Pearmain guarantees “more durable variations of all of the bosses within the recreation” in addition to “a brand new useful resource that you need to use to spend on a brand new shopkeeper who can provide you uncommon unlocks.” He describes the brand new, harder mode as “type of a souped-up New Recreation Plus – as a substitute of simply making you battle the very same enemies, we’ve made them more durable.”
It’s not simply concerning the fight, nevertheless – Pearmain remarks {that a} lack of dungeon depth and selection was one of many foremost criticisms raised concerning the base recreation by gamers, so enhancing on that was an enormous precedence for the staff. “From the very inception of the sport the thought was, let’s construct a recreation the place we will simply continue to grow it.”
Twitch streaming was additionally an enormous a part of the sport’s success. Pearmain nods to the idea of streamers letting their viewers be part of their cult and make selections, which he says labored rather well for the sport. Nonetheless, it was necessary to the staff that the tone of the entire thing leant in a enjoyable route to keep away from issues getting overly sinister.
“It might be fairly a heavy subject material,” Armstrong notes, “you may feed [your cult members] to different followers… [but] the DNA of the sport is simply to have enjoyable. Despite the fact that there’s all these horrible issues you are able to do.” As such, the staff needed to strike a stability between the inherent horror stylings and one thing a bit of extra light-hearted.
Pearmain explains, “There was lots of backwards and forwards – we needed it to be cute, however we didn’t need it to be sickly candy; after which we needed it to be horror, however we didn’t need it to be tremendous gross, violent physique horror. So it took various iterations backwards and forwards to search out the place these two goalposts had been.” As the sport’s artwork director, he notes that “Every little thing was simply too cute, and so they saved telling me to make it increasingly evil.”
“We knew we didn’t need purple blood, as a result of we felt like possibly some individuals wouldn’t reply very nicely to that,” Armstrong says. As an alternative, the sport opted for tentacles that seize your villagers and yank them down into the mysterious void under. “I believe we couldn’t have carried out it some other means based mostly on the kind of issues we make,” he explains, “We saved attempting to make it darkish, and it simply naturally comes again to enjoyable.”
There’s loads extra within the works for Cult of the Lamb. Together with the Relics of the Outdated Religion replace is a collection of elevated accessibility instruments, together with high-contrast textual content mode and dyslexic font settings. Pearmain additionally mentions that the staff is engaged on choices to pause the day/night time cycle whereas in dungeons, and contemplating methods to permit gamers to regulate problem independently throughout the fight and base-building sides of the sport to higher fine-tune their expertise.
Are there any plans for rising the dimensions of the camp space, we ask? “Not with this replace,” Pearmain responds, “But it surely’s undoubtedly one thing that I believe we’d love to do.” Nonetheless, he emphasises that the staff desires to “be sure that we don’t increase the world too rapidly in a shallow means. As a result of even [with] what we’ve now, we might add extra depth to that.”
“We’re nonetheless open to exploring no matter makes the sport extra enjoyable,” concludes Armstrong. “It’s been an ideal drawback to have.”
If you happen to’re simply getting began, don’t miss our Cult of the Lamb newbie’s information and suggestions for preventing all Cult of the Lamb bosses. We’ve additionally picked out one of the best indie video games on PC, should you’re in search of extra smashing smaller releases to maintain your self entertained.
Interview carried out by Nat Smith at WASD 2023.