Indie game "Cult of The Lamb" was born out
of a desire to mix base-building elements with dungeon-crawling gameplay. Despite having that core idea in mind from
the start, it took a lot of iteration before indie developer Massive Monster landed on
the idea of creating your own cult. In fact, over 60% of the work they did, ended
up on the cutting room floor. Early concepts included a Girl Scouts idea,
a concept in which the player was a God taking care of a tribe on top of a flying whale,
and a "make your own hell" afterlife simulator. However, the team ultimately decided on the
concept of creating and running your own cult. Before we delve deeper into Cult of The Lamb’s
initial concepts and how it was made, let's take a closer look at Australian- and UK-based
developer Massive Monster and its three founders. In the early 2000s, Jay Armstrong, Julian
Wilton, and James Pearmain began their careers in the gaming industry by creating Flash games
for popular websites such as Newgrounds, Kongregate, and Armor Games. At that time, there was a kind of bubble in
which people could create a game within a few months, or even weeks, and receive sponsorship
money from one of the countless Flash game websites. In exchange, these sites would incorporate
their branding into the game and distribute it across thousands of other websites. Certain games would often amass millions or
even tens of millions of plays across all Flash websites. According to James, it was a great way to
learn about game design and development as it allowed developers to rapidly iterate games
and get feedback from millions of players. However, the abundance of free and readily
available games meant that players' attention spans were short. Consequently, games needed to be accessible
and simple enough to appeal to a wide audience. Fortunately, if a game failed, developers
could quickly pivot to the next one and try again. James created art for a bunch of Flash games
and met Jay in 2012 at an event in London. Jay had previously collaborated with Julian
on a game titled 'Super Adventure Pals'. The trio instantly hit it off and decided
to collaborate on a game titled 'Rocket Pets'. They developed a few more games together,
but it became increasingly challenging to make a substantial profit from Flash games
due to the growing popularity of the iPhone and iPad. As more people shifted to playing games on
their phones rather than on desktop computers, and the inability to use the Flash player
on iOS, gradually led to the platform's decline. In response to the changing market, the three
developers founded Massive Monster in October 2014. They decided to create a reimagining of 'Super
Adventure Pals' for Steam and consoles, which was released in 2018. Simultaneously, they developed a second game
called 'Never Give Up,' based on another old Flash game, 'Give Up'. Unfortunately, it was released the following
year to disappointing sales, causing the studio to struggle financially. The team later realized their mistake in investing
five years of work into both games concurrently as they now only had enough resources left
to create one more game. They decided it was best to move away from
relying on their old Flash game IPs and instead chose to concentrate all their efforts on
creating a completely new game. After releasing 'Never Give Up', they identified
several issues that needed to be addressed for their next game. “Our previous game was a linear platformer,
and we found that it was quite a long game. It's at least 10-12 hours, but every character
conversation you'd only ever have once. You'd only meet once each level, and if there
were 120 levels, you'd only play them once. What's even worse is that with live streaming
many people probably wouldn't even play once, they'd just watch someone else play, and so
you could experience the game in a way without ever buying it or playing it yourself.” Additionally, the lighthearted tone and visuals
of 'Never Give Up' led people to dismiss it as a kid’s game, which further narrowed
its target audience. Therefore, the three developers decided that
their next game shouldn’t offer a linear experience and that it needed a considerably
darker theme. At that time, the team was obsessed with playing
farming simulator 'Stardew Valley', the colony management game 'RimWorld', and roguelikes
'Enter The Gungeon' and 'The Binding of Isaac'. James loves the sense of progression you get
by expanding your farm, as well as interacting with all the NPC characters in 'Stardew Valley'. Furthermore, venturing into the mines, battling
enemies, and collecting better resources the deeper you go into the mines, felt highly
compelling to him. RimWorld on the other hand excels at creating
unique emergent stories and offers infinite replayability. Enter The gungeon and Isaac provide engaging
combat that keeps the player coming back for more. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t take long for
one of them to suggest, "Let's take RimWorld and mash it with Enter the Gungeon. But instead of guns, let's use swords." Afterwards, the studio began brainstorming
concepts and a visual identity, which proved to be the greatest challenge during development. One of those early concepts called 'Sword
Scouts' was a 2D action platformer involving a group of girl scouts who planted seeds to
grow magical weapons. The studio even made a pitch video to attract
publishers, but ultimately, the idea didn't take off. Following this, the developers started gravitating
towards concepts where players had to rescue characters while out exploring the world and
bring them back to their base. Players could then have fun interactions with
these NPCs, each with their own distinct personalities. One version of this featured a tribe living
on top of a giant floating whale. The player acted as the tribe's last God,
tasked with diving down to the dangerous world below to find new followers. However, the problem with this concept was
that players didn't grasp the premise quickly enough. The next one they tried was a sort of 'build
your own Hell' afterlife simulator, and part of the gameplay involved being forced to torture
your followers. People quickly understood the general premise
this time, but the issue now was that the followers looked so cute that playtesters
didn’t want to punish them. So they had to come up with something else. Julian was always drawn to the idea of rituals
and being a God or a leader. Therefore, once they came up with the concept
of running a cult, things instantly began falling into place. The game became less about punishment and
more about deciding what kind of leader you want to be. This concept was also much easier to explain
to others because it centers around fulfilling the player's personal fantasy. Before we move on, I’d like to talk about
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or click the link in the description and start your next creative project today. Milanote, get organized, stay creative. Now back to the video. At the start of development, the cult members
looked fairly generic and more like humans. However, as the importance of the cultists
grew and became more important to the gameplay, they required more distinct silhouettes. Otherwise, it would be difficult for players
to locate individual cult members when scanning the screen. This led the developers to start incorporating
elements like spiky heads and other distinguishing features. At that point, they asked themselves, "Well,
is this still a person?" Soon enough, they veered towards transforming
them into animals. As evident, the developers had to drag themselves
through a lot of different concepts and throw away tons of work before they settled on the
tagline ‘start your own cult of woodland worshippers’. Creating a game where the player leads a cult
comes with certain expectations, such as the ability to perform ritualistic sacrifices,
sermons, and so on. The studio was well aware that they had to
meet these expectations and were ready to face all the challenges that would bring. They began by compiling a list of 'what is
a cult?' and then examined how each point could be translated into gameplay mechanics. It was an exciting but difficult challenge
as they hadn't seen many of these types of mechanics in other games before. The game's theme draws on the truth that power
corrupts, and the studio wanted the player's journey to reflect this. This meant the developers needed to establish
opportunities and rewards to try and lure players over to the dark side. That said, it was crucial to allow players
to choose what type of leader they want to be, and therefore, provide nicer alternatives—even
if they were just there to highlight what a monster the player had become if they went
down the path of evil. Moreover, it was also important not to force
the player in any direction, but merely to make them aware of the darker gameplay elements. This is why the ritual sacrifice mechanic
is gifted to the player, instead of being unlocked as a choice like the other rituals. This way, people are always confronted with
and tempted by a more sinister path. Once made aware, it's up to the player whether
they want to unlock things like a ritualistic fight pit, which forces two followers to battle
to the death, or rather more pleasant options like the wedding ritual, which allows the
player to marry one of their followers. Do you want the ability to inspire cult members
or do you prefer to intimidate them into working harder? It's these kinds of decisions the developers
inserted to help shape what type of leader the player becomes. During playtests, the team discovered that
most people preferred to be kind to their followers, so they experimented with the types
of rewards players would receive when they go down the dark side. At the same time, Massive Monster was struggling
to decide how players could upgrade themselves. They tried many different things, such as
taking your followers with you during dungeon runs, but this muddied the action too much. To try and kill two birds with one stone,
the developers tied player upgrades to the more sinister game mechanics. For instance, the sacrifice ritual originally
only rewarded players with gold, but once it was tied to player upgrades instead, far
more people started using it. The team also increased the value of highly
loyal followers, creating a constant temptation for players to sacrifice their favorite followers
for personal gain. While finding the right concept was the biggest
challenge during development, making the roguelike and colony simulator gameplay work together
in harmony, was the second biggest challenge. Traditionally in roguelikes, it’s all about
surviving for as long as possible during dungeon runs and when you die, you lose everything. The team wanted to add more long term progression
to this gameplay loop by returning back home with new resources after each run which can
then be used to expand your base. In addition, they also sought to include features
such as a day-night cycle and daily routines for cult members, whose unique needs would
have to be met each day. The colony simulation aspect was initially
far more complex. Each follower had individual hunger and faith
bars, and the player needed to talk to them daily to understand their needs. However, as the number of cult members expanded,
it became too cumbersome to take care of everyone, leading to one overall faith and hunger meter. The team also had a lot of trouble figuring
out how the followers worked within the wider systems of the game. They grappled with the question of how to
make the game more centered around the cult while also engaging the player in dungeon
battles. Eventually, they came up with the idea to
turn cult members into a sort of resource. The developers looked at them as if they were
crops in Stardew Valley. Even though actual farming exists in the game,
the real "farming" is about nurturing and investing time in followers. As mentioned earlier, players who invest enough
time can reap rewards, for instance, by sacrificing loyal followers. These rewards can then be used to upgrade
the player character with new weapons and abilities, which are essential for surviving
and progressing during dungeon runs. If players want to expand their base and gain
new followers, they can do so by gathering resources and rescuing potential followers
while out battling enemies. The two sides of the game were now really
starting to feed into each other, creating a more addictive gameplay loop, which also
made switching between them more satisfying. Furthermore, the devs made it so that the
base and followers are constantly simulated so if you’re waiting for a building to be
completed, you can go on a quick dungeon crawl and it’ll likely be finished by the time
you’re back. All of this was achieved with the Unity engine. Players would naturally spend a lot of time
taking care of their base so Massive Monster wanted to make that experience as enjoyable
as possible. They put in a lot of time and effort to make
it feel more than just a fancy upgrade tree. It needed to feel like a fully fledged colony
sim. Therefore, each follower has their own personality
and daily routine. Some will help you, some will hurt you and
they will all eventually grow old and die. The team added a lot of emergent stories that
come out of interacting with cult members to make sure things stay interesting after
many hours of gameplay. For years, the team struggled with finding
the right balance and trying to ensure neither side of the game was overly complicated. When they experimented with enhancing the
complexity of the roguelike side, it detracted from the cult-building aspect, and vice versa. That said, the studio aimed to give players
the freedom to lean more into either side if they wanted to. That’s why there’s ways to acquire resources
and new followers without leaving the base, and why players can continuously embark on
dungeon runs with minimal interruptions. James admits that players ultimately need
to engage in both aspects of the game to progress, but there’s at least some flexibility in
how people can allocate their time. For the cult management part of the game,
the team took inspiration from Oxygen Not Included, Frostpunk, Stardew Valley, Don’t
Starve, RimWorld, Animal Crossing and Moonlighter. When it comes to the roguelike side, they
were mainly inspired by The Binding of Isaac, Enter the Gungeon, Dead Cells and Hades. Fun fact: a lot of the bright, flowery aesthetic,
as well as the general look of the game’s assets, are inspired by horror films Midsommar
and Wicker Man. Partly due to the studio’s partnership with
Devolver Digital, Massive Monster was able to attract new talent and significantly expand
its team throughout development. The studio now comprises over a dozen developers. The cute artstyle might seem a bit jarring
at first considering the dark undertones of the game, but it's a style that comes naturally
to artists James and Julian. Whatever they draw comes out looking cartoonish
and adorable. The team decided early on to embrace the cuteness
for the cult management aspect, while aiming to make the dungeon runs feel scary and dangerous. Rendering the cult aspects in a cute and colorful
way enabled the developers to add horrendous things into the game without them ever feeling
excessively grim. “You can do some truly dark things which,
had we had a more realistic or darker art style, would have felt unpalatable. We really wanted to let players go down a
dark path without them realizing how evil they were becoming until it was too late! Having that sort of juxtaposition between
the cute and the creepy really helped us push both sides of the game and what we want you
to feel about its characters. Another reason the studio embraced the game's
charming aesthetic was to create an emotional connection between the player and the followers. You hopefully start to care for them, perhaps
making you think twice before doing horrible things to them. When a favorite follower eventually dies of
old age, it might even evoke some sadness. This is also why you can customize and name
your followers, as well as view their thoughts - all in an effort to enhance that emotional
bond. While the charming aesthetic of the cult management
aspect came naturally to James and Julian, they encountered significant difficulties
with the roguelike portion of the game. The team aimed for the monsters and enemy
cult leaders to look fearsome, but not excessively gruesome, and they wanted these characters
to seem grounded in their natural environments rather than coming across as overly supernatural
or demonic. However, enemies often ended up looking too
adorable in early concept art. For instance, the bishops were originally
depicted as small animals, like the player character, and looked more funny than intimidating. To find the right tone, they explored a lot
of different styles, one of which involved using sharper shapes and silhouettes, a technique
that successfully conveyed more of the scary vibe they were striving for. One of those scarier looking characters is
The One Who Waits. Originally, he was an unimportant NPC that
sold you followers. Despite his minor role, the developers were
quite fond of his design, so they decided to give him a more important role. They increased his size, put him in chains
and created and gave him his own domain. At that point, it made sense for him to give
the crown to the main character as part of a sinister deal. Later, once more gameplay elements were established,
the team sat down and thought about what to name this devilish character and what his
role would be within the game's story and the player's journey. According to Jay, it was a very organic, art-driven
process, much like most of the game's development. The lamb, the player character, also went
through a whole iteration process. Initially, it resembled more of a demon, then
transitioned to a bunny design for a while, before finally morphing into a lamb. At this stage in development, the working
title for the project was "Lamb God", although it quickly changed to “Sacrificial Lamb”
which stuck for quite a while. The original concept involved starting the
game as a vulnerable animal. This was integrated into the onboarding process
where you would learn to navigate the world as a normal lamb. Eventually, you would gain control of the
crown and possess the lamb, prompting its transformation into the humanoid lamb character
that we know and love today. The team understood the importance of designing
a main character that fans could easily recreate in fan art so it was always in the back of
their minds to keep the elements of the lamb quite simple. This resulted in a simplified color palette
and easily recognizable character components: a crown, a tunic, a bell, and of course, the
lamb itself. Initially, the crown was simply a way for
the developers to illustrate that the player character is a leader among followers. However, they further developed it into a
recurring motif throughout the game and incorporated it into the overall branding. That’s why each Bishop received their own
uniquely colored crown. The studio even considered being able to collect
the other crowns, but this idea was ultimately scrapped. To make the crown more central to the gameplay,
the developers designed it to unlock the player's powers and to shapeshift into various weapons. Originally, the entire game had a more stylized,
monochromatic appearance. James stated that it didn't look bad, but
they ultimately opted to maintain a more colorful look and feel as it allowed for greater variety
in character designs and biomes. Nonetheless, the monochromatic palette of
red, black, and white is still present throughout the game’s branding and user interface,
providing a cohesive aesthetic that ties closely to the main character. To give the game more of a cinematic and atmospheric
feel, the developers added some color grading and a lighting system on top of all the flat
2D artwork. It really helped to bring everything together
into the 3D world. The soundtrack was created by Narayana Johnson,
also known as River Boy, who introduced his unique electronic beats and production to
the game. The developers wanted the outside world to
feel like a dark and scary place full of horrors, and the time spent at your cult feel more
like a relaxing haven. Needless to say, the music needed to emphasize
those two opposite feelings. Other than that, Narayana had full creative
freedom. “Finding the best person and letting them
take ownership and do what they do best is one of the biggest parts of developing a game. He just went to town and knocked it out of
the park. I don't think we gave him any feedback on
anything. I think he just said, "This is it," and we
were like, "Wow, okay, great”.” The final stretch of development proved to
be the most stressful. The shift from full production, a stage where
the different parts start to become fun and click together, to the completion stage was
a challenging transition. In an interview with GameGrin, James mentioned
that the fun dwindled during this period as there were countless tasks to complete and
bugs to fix. However, the overwhelmingly positive reaction
to the game's first reveal served as a big motivator. Seeing people create fan art even before the
game's release inspired Massive Monster to make the best game possible and pull out all
the stops. After about three years of hard work and experimentation,
Massive Monster was pleased with the state of the game. According to Jay, approximately 60% of the
work wound up on the cutting room floor, but it was all worth it in the end. Cult of The Lamb was released on August 11th,
2022, to very favorable reviews. Its art style, dark humor, and addictive gameplay
were highly praised. The game did suffer from bugs and performance
issues during its launch, especially on consoles, but many of these have been addressed since
then. As a result, one million copies were sold
within one week after its release. Later that year, Cult of The Lamb won several
awards, including Best Indie Game at the Golden Joysticks Awards and Game of the Year at the
Australian Game Developer Awards. Massive Monster is far from finished with
their roguelike colony simulator. In April 2023, they released a significant
free content update titled "Relics of the Old Faith," which added a new post-game storyline
with a brand new campaign, a photo-mode, and improvements to the game's combat and cult
management mechanics. A second free content update, also planned
for release in 2023, will primarily focus on enhancing the cult management mechanics
and adding additional story elements. After that, who knows what’s in store for
The Lamb and its followers. However, one thing is certain: the team is
thrilled with their working relationship with publisher Devolver Digital and the widespread
appreciation their game has received. “Working with Devolver Digital has been
really amazing - they have managed to put our game in front of so many people, and the
idea just seems to have really resonated with people. It's been very humbling! I'm still very shocked about how well it's
going, and when I see all the people buying the plushies. We love it, we feel very grateful.”
