In English, “Cult” refers to organizations that worship beliefs or beliefs outside of mainstream religion, most of which have a mysterious and strange image in the eyes of atheists. In the entertainment world, Hollywood film culture pushes this image even further with mystical horror films, slightly blurring the line between reality and the paranormal. That makes every time we mention Cult, or “Cult”, we often immediately think of a sick heresy with strange and horrifying practices.
But Honey, I Joined a Cult, the debut title of Sole Survivor Games, has a completely different color than what we imagined. There, the player, as a novice “leader” who has just started establishing a sect, now has to deal with a billion problems surrounding his followers. From ensuring the infrastructure operates smoothly, having adequate food and clothing, to taking care of the spiritual well-being of “believers”, gamers will be immersed in a title management game literally Honey, I Joined a Cult.
Customization
Usually at the beginning of single player games, character customization seems to be non-existent and it doesn’t mean much. But Honey, I Joined a Cult allows you to customize to your liking to make your church unique. Not Christianity, Buddhism or Islam, but players will create their own empire. You can completely leave it at default if you don’t want to spend hours just thinking about what your army looks like.
Instruct
For games with “follow-on” gameplay, most experienced gamers will skip this prelude. As for Honey, I Joined a Cult, as a leader, players need to grasp the most basic operations and indicators to understand the game mechanics before operating a complex community. If you have ever experienced traditional games like the Sim, players will certainly quickly feel familiar. However, whether to use it skillfully or not depends on each person’s leadership talent.
Gameplay
The main goal of the game is to increase the number of followers and keep the cult members always achieving the best happiness index. In other words, the more followers you recruit, the more busy you must be in building and taking care of your people. Similar to common cults, the game has spiritual activities such as meditating, practicing yoga, praying,… but there are no sacrifices or scary activities at all.
Looking at it objectively, building and developing a church is like a money-making business, and the money earned continues to be used to expand the size of the sect. Players will have to perform a series of activities such as promoting their image, expanding their reputation, and spreading their teachings to more people. Whether the Church develops sustainably or not depends a lot on calculating activities properly. Of course, balancing money is equally important if you don’t want to go bankrupt in a minute.
In general, the game is not too heavy on religion, it is simply about managing and operating a group of “eccentric” people. The game even becomes quite fun when the sheep walk around the house with extremely witty and humorous dialogue.
Images and sounds
In terms of graphics, there really isn’t much to talk about because this is a 2D game with a relatively simple block design. But in return, the elaboration as well as the level of perfection is done quite well. The game focuses more on gameplay than investing in images so a game’s graphics indie games that is completely acceptable.
The colors of Honey, I Joined a Cult are inspired by the 1970s. Almost all images and sounds are inspired by Western culture decades ago, most especially the exciting music. dynamic and jubilant, causing players to stomp their feet to the beat throughout the journey.
Evaluate
Overall, Honey, I Joined a Cult has a unique content, as well as a gameplay that is not too difficult to understand. However, we must admit that this is not a game for everyone, because as mentioned, the game revolves around the topic of religion – a relatively sensitive and “difficult to swallow” topic. In terms of price, you will have to spend about $17.99 (more than 400,000 VND), this is not a pleasant price at all for gamers to be willing to experience a little-known game. However, if you are someone who likes new experiences, Honey, I Joined a Cult is still worth a try! Currently the game is in Beta so there are no modes like multiplayer yet. Hopefully in the future, the game will release more game modes and more interesting updates.
