Alexis Kennedy, co-founder of Failbetter and writer and designer on Fallen London, Sunless Sea and Cultist Simulator, has been accused of being an abuser and “well-known predator” by several prominent women in the games industry, including an allegation from a former colleague at Failbetter. The allegations came as part of a recent wave of similar stories shared on Twitter, among them allegations made against composer Jeremy Soule and developer Alec Holowka. Kennedy has denied the allegations on Twitter and via a statement given to RPS, while Failbetter say they “believe and stand with everyone who has come forward.”

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Enthralling and maddening in equal measure, card-juggling eldritch life sim Cultist Simulator is celebrating its first birthday today, and there’s gifts for the devoted. Developer Weather Factory are rolling out the final two planned bits of DLC for the game today, each adding a new playable character, new ways to run your cult, and many more ways to lose. They’ve also announced Book Of Hours, the next game in the series. A spin-off tasking players with running and organising a forbidden library, and ensuring the clientele find what they seek without getting too badly cursed.

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We don t expect much of a typical video game map. As long as it guides us to our destination (and perhaps looks pretty while doing so) most of us won t waste a second thought on it. And yet, maps can be much more than tools that make our way from A to B a little more convenient. Some games reject the notion of maps as a tacked-on extraneous layer, and instead treat them as an integral part of their world. These maps can tell us something about their world and its inhabitants that goes far beyond topographical information. Rather than creating distance between us and a game, they root us more firmly in it.

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If you’ve survived dark forces and fancy a greater challenge than wrangling a cult to uncover and master the terrible secrets at the heart of the world (easy peasy tbh), Cultist Simulator has your back. The eldritch… survival RPG (?) today adds a New Game+ mode in a free update, letting us continue our tale in a difficult and terrible new way. It’s a right big’un too, bunging in 20,000-odd new words. Some might even be brand new words.

Beyond this, head cultist Alexis Kennedy is kicking around the idea of making a standalone expansion sorta thing about playing a librarian organising an esoteric collection.

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In a major free update coming to Cultist Simulator on January 22nd, victory through immortality will be just the beginning. Developers Weather Factory call this second story ‘advanced mode’, and it lets players resume a completed game in a very clever way. Taking control of an apostle of your now-immortal past self, your new goal is to help your old character ascend to godhood, possibly ending the world in the process. An easy job, then, except for a cadre of rival immortals seeking to throw some eldritch spanners into your machinations.

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If my 2018 was the year of anything, it was surely the year of knowing your place. The games I’ve picked out in hindsight are united by the idea of understanding how you fit into a complex world – appreciating the intricacy of the variables and relationships that surround every given moment, whether your overall aim be to subdue them or just survive them. That and a fondness for long words and creative sci-fantasy concepts, anyway. Read on, adventurer, for much talk of gods, spiders and spaceships.

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Much as I love Cultist Simulator‘s atmosphere, I’ve yet to come close to completing it, my character ground down by the mundanity of maintaining mortal flesh. Today’s DLC, The Dancer, might yet give me a chance at victory – or something close to it. Introducing a new career path as a cabaret dancer, those who pursue the art of dance may find it ties more into the world of the unseen than expected. Or players might just earn the lusty eye of a lord or lady – a free update also introduces romances and rivalries, adding more twists to Weather Factory’s card-based eldritch life-sim.

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Are you in the mood for dancing? If you pick up the upcoming Dancer DLC for card-o-mystery Cultist Simulator, then it won’t really matter. That’s your job now. Doing jigs in an occult club where “the distinction between pleasure and pain is as delicate and essential as the human skin.”

You can dance if you want to. Just leave your earthly friends behind. (more…)

I am a lowly aspirant with nothing but my name and my failing body. I am uninitiated. I am a worm in the dark, crawling through the pages of the secret histories of the world.

I’m playing Cultist Simulator.

This is a game of apocalypse and yearning , in which players attempt to direct eldritch forces and hidden gods without the faintest idea of what they’re doing. Yearning and apocalypse, certainly, but it is also a game of ignorance. This is the essential magic of the game. (more…)

Psst. I know mum said you weren t allowed to listen to those hellions on your favourite podcast anymore, but the hosts of the Electronic Wireless Show won t tell if you don t. This week we re talking about the games we weren t allowed to play as youngsters, but did anyway. Alice suffered strict rationing of The Sims 2, and Dave (oh hello Dave) was looked at with concern while playing Silent Hill. Brendan s parents didn t seem to care. Let s all go to Brendan s house. He s got GTA 2. (more…)