Dragon Age writer and Sunless Sea creative director unveils Cultist Simulator
UPDATE: Funded with oodles of time to go.
In the interests of transparency I should point out Alexis Kennedy has written a few articles for Eurogamer before.
UPDATE 4TH SEPTEMBER: It's been a lovely weekend for Alexis Kennedy whose Cultist Simulator Kickstarter has sailed past its £30,000 goal. He's now scratching at £55,000 with 26 days to go.
"In the Cultist Simulator setting, there are thirty Hours," Kennedy wrote.
"This game was 100 per cent funded in a little over 12 hours.
"I normally have an aesthetic objection to one-sentence effect paragraphs, but fuck it.
"OKA WE'RE MAKING THIS GAME. Imma bring the dawn. SERIOUSLY you people have exceeeded my expectations in quite a terrifying way. I am very nearly going to ask you to stop giving me money but I'm not quite there yet."
As for stretch goals, Kennedy in principle isn't a fan as he'd rather spend time making the game people have funded. He has, however, a couple of ideas. One is a physical realisation of the game's tarot cards, but given the work and cost involved he'd only consider this at a lots-of-leeway funding milestone such as £100,000. Another possibility is reprinting an old, out-of-print short story of his via a small press, but it requires Kennedy re-reading it. He also has ideas for very small and fun stretch goals he can sprinkle on the campaign as it progresses.
ORIGINAL STORY 1ST SEPTEMBER: Alexis Kennedy - who created Fallen London, was creative director of the marvellous Sunless Sea, and who has recently been writing parts of the next Dragon Age for BioWare - has unveiled a deeply imaginative new narrative game called Cultist Simulator.
Set in the 1920s, Cultist Simulator is a game about chasing incomprehensible gods in your dreams while holding at bay the prying eyes of real-world authorities. Victory may be becoming a higher entity yourself or tearing down the world you lived in, or it may be choosing life, a relationship - maybe with an investigating member of the authority - instead.
As with Kenendy's other works the possibilities are many and winding. Cultist Simulator is a game about weaving a tapestry from your many choices. Mechanically it's a kind of story card game, where cards governing all sorts of different aspects or rituals can be combined to produce unknown outcomes.
Kennedy is Kickstarting Cultist Simulator with a modest goal of £30,000. Most of the game is done, he said on Kickstarter, but he needs your help to make it "sing". There's a playable build of the game available but it is very much a proof of concept with many placeholder elements on show.
Cultist Simulator's estimated date of delivery is May 2018. The cheapest tier you can pledge at to reserve a copy of the game is now £10. All tiers receive the Perpetual Edition of the game, which includes access to all in-development builds and all downloadable add-ons.
There's a bit more about Cultist Simulator on Alexis Kennedy's website.