Everything You Need To Start - A Cultist Simulator Guide

A quick, no spoiler guide. Designed for new players to get over the game's initial challenges.

I've loved this game. But a lot of people in my life do not have the patience to "figure out" the early challenges as the devs intended. This guide is for anyone who put this game down and wants an assist. New Players. Or even if you're considering buying.

00:05 - Intro
00:24 - Basics
03:21 - Getting Started
04:55 - Surviving the Timer
09:40 - Cult Time
12:25 - Final Tips

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[lauracocroft]

Damn homie really dropped the single best cultist simulator tutorial then dipped forever

[Ysksksks]

My first playthrough died because of a heart failure. My new journey gave me the option to start as a doctor and found a paper called "[previous char's name] Case" and started tracing their steps.
Found that really amazing

[dirt]

This is exactly what i needed: just enough & without spoilers. Thaanks and well done.

[kamufi_music]

8:04 OMFG This has me in tears 10/10 clip.

[CyberSky]

i've had this game for at least a year and a half and never once realized u can see the next time-based check ahead of time. changed everything for me. thank you so much dude

[LuciferLuckless]

I've lost like the first 6 runs of this game all to dread, so learning that there are consistent ways to generate contentment and get rid of restlessness helps a ton, thanks.

[LoppyJen]

My takeaway from this tutorial: "Cultist Simulator wants you dead."

Awesome video! Can't wait for more tutorials!

[mookosh]

I think my favourite mechanical system in this game is the dread mechanic.

When I started out I was obsessed with trying to avoid any investigator (I. E. I didn't even want to accumulate mystique). But then I kept running into a problem. I would get restless and that restlessness would decay into dread. Now if I remembered to paint with my restlessness I would be fine, but it was difficult to juggle glover and glover with painting and inevitably I'd get my first dread.

So what would I do? Sleep with health. Sometimes sleeping with health makes contentment, but sometimes it made a second dread. So I'd get into a situation where I've got two dreads and one more will kill me. I haven't unlocked the club (which can also make dread). I can't trust sleeping not to make more dread and quite often this would be the end of my run.

But then I discovered that I can feed dread as trappings into the cultist recruitment cycle. By allowing myself to become a target for investigation, I could accumulate acquaintances who could sponge up excess dread until I got far enough into the game to have the resources needed to nullify dread by alternative means (going to the mansus to get fascination/contentment etc.)

Very clever design.

[ARGrace]

This was really helpful, thank you so much! I found that I got frustrated with how little guidance there is- I know it’s supposed to be exploratory but this is just the right amount of guidance. Also love the little quips you put in, especially 5:14 hahaha. Thanks Mr. G!

[nicolasdorella]

I already knew most of those mechanics, but this 11:40 changed everything, you see, I am a huge fan of Lord of the Mysteries, so I was treating this game as Beyonder simulator and focusing my efforts on raising my abilities, completely ignoring the cult action, but now, I understand the truth.

[d_sb]

Had about an hour and a half of gameplay time before I sorta kinda figured out how to get my cult going, but then I kept getting bogged down with restlessness and dread and found myself at a standstill. Super helpful video!!

[oskarpilkarz]

I just started playing this, i died like 2 times and got minor cop ending, i knew most of the stuff you talked about but the professionalism and quality of your video is outstanding! you really should become Big

[Codepanther]

I googled ‘Why Cultist Simulator hates me’ and ended up here.

Thanks for the amazing tutorial!

[Finn_Del_Mundo]

"Visit the main screen" was easily my favorite line. Thanks for this starter guide! It's really helped me get going!

[Yakita]

This...was the BEST Beginner's guide I've come across. Just started the game myself, I am completely blind, but I already have my notes to the side. Thanks for all of the tips, I have added them to my notes! Ok, back to the game! 👍

[pongsazaaa]

thank you for the guide! I'm able to survive very long right after I watched this. The run is still doing well!

[GoldieTamamo]

One quick addition to dealing with dread/fascination, that you didn't mention!

You can negate fascination cards, by dreaming of them with dread--and this also negates the dread!

Also, remember: Just because you 'can' dream a mood away, doesn't mean you need to--if there's enough time left on a card that it would negate the dread/seeing things verb, that card can get pulled in during the verb's next cycle, assuming there's not additional fascination/dread on the board, and even sometimes if there is. Or you can just wait for the mood card to decay on its own, if there's no Dread/Seeing Things verb already on your board or in your foreseeable future.

What this means, is that you can keep dreaming with more useful cards, and let the mood cards and mood verbs resolve themselves without dreaming, if you have a counter mood influence available, or just enough time to get rid of cards.

Example 1, Getting Rid of Cards Dreamlessly: I just whiffed an opportunity to convert restlessness into fuel for painting, because I needed to keep my desk job at Glover & Glover. But I check the 'Time Passes' verb, and see that there's no Season of Despair icon. Since I don't have to worry about the dread getting picked up yet, I leave it on the table and let its timer decay. Another season passes, no Despair verb is predicted--and finally, a third with no Despair--I'm able to wait out the entire 180 second duration of the Dread card, and it decays on its own.

Example 2, Getting Rid of Verbs Dreamlessly: I am dreaming with Reason early game, because Reason can get me access to extra vitality/glimmering, but I accidentally generate fascination from "Nightmare: The Cleansing Dawn". I look at my 'Time Passes' verb, and see that I have a 'Season of Visions' coming up next, so that Fascination's definitely about to get picked up. But as luck would have it, I recently generated a reminiscence from a Despair verb resolving without picking up any Dread! So sure, I could dream with the fascination and reminiscence cards together, to negate them both and avoid having the "Seeing Things" verb stick around. But that would still take up an entire precious minute cycle of dreaming, that I could instead spend repeating dreaming with reason to get what I need--

So instead of dreaming the two mood cards together, I check the timer left on the Reminiscence card. It still has 100 seconds on it, and my "Time Passes" verb is down to 20 seconds--20 seconds on the time verb, + 60 on the Seeing Things verb to process the Fascination = 80 seconds, my Reminiscence lasts 100 more seconds, 100-80 = 20--so that's more than enough for the season to pass, and the "Seeing Things" verb to digest the Fascination card, and then pick up the Reminiscence and kill itself on its own. I didn't have to waste a minute dreaming, and the "Seeing Things" verb takes care of picking up the reminiscence on its own and just goes away.

This would also work if I let a restlessness decay into a dread card, to get picked up by "Seeing Things", so long as there isn't a Despair verb on the board with an open magnet slot.

Now mind you, this second technique gets risky if you have multiple dread or fascination cards on the board (the verb can choose to take another bad mood card that would worsen it, and ignore the ones that would cancel it), or if you have multiple bad mood verbs going, and it's considerably harder to cancel Despair directly with contentment as well, since contentment only lasts a full minute.

It's in this situation that I should remind you of the 'paint' skill's ability to store and preserve moods. You can hold onto a reminiscence or contentment, for when you most need it, by repeatedly painting with it.

Good luck managing your moods!

[thegreatqtip]

12:43 Something about your delivery on "Don't worry about it." just cracked me up.

[caferockgarito]

I forgot to come back and tell i finished my first run, and this guide was of incredible help.

I like this game overall, especially the ambient and lore behind it, but it was such a pain at times I don't think I'll ever play it again.

Like, in my first and unique grand victory, which took an absurdly amount of time I'm not willing to confess, almost at the end when i was very advanced i was about to lose it all for only ONE second. And this is a run I considered myself to be VERY lucky.

However your guide and explanation was supreme. Wish you the best and that you're still doing good buddy 👍 in hope you ever come back. There's very few people with such communication skills in the tube.

[Silas_MN]

I've been playing this game for a long time, and while I didn't learn anything from this video, I was very entertained!