Today we announced we're making another tarot deck, with a twist! The Tarot of the Hours was so popular it gave me the tarot bug, so I'm developing an entirely new 78-card tarot deck designed around medieval stained glass windows. The key thing about this deck is it's printed on transparent PVC, so it should actually look quite stained-glass-window-y in real life! As far as we know this hasn't been done before, so that's exciting. Here's what it'll look like!
The big Mansus-y image is the back of all 78 cards. Flip it over and you'll see the minor and major arcana. All art is hand-drawn by me and will feature the Hours and some reimagined images from Cultist Simulator. It may also end up in the windows of Hush House in BOOK OF HOURS, but that's in the lap of the gods...
The tarot's in-progress, obviously, so let us all take a moment to appreciate how Vagabond it is that the current sketch for the seventeenth major arcana card, The Star - corresponding to the seventeenth Hour, the Vagabond - looks exactly like the mad 2007 Ukranian entry to the Eurovision Song Contest. This is exactly the sort of whimsical accident the Laughingthrush likes...
Our focus as a studio is on BOOK OF HOURS, as you probably all know! But while that project's in its early stages - and a producer/artist/marketer is not as in-demand as she is later on - I'm working on a secret second project we indend to announce at the end of May on Cultist Simulator's anniversary. It's of particular interest to Cultist fans. Here's what we've teased so far...
Those of you waiting for Japanese and German on mobile, it's launching on Tuesday 27th April - that's this Tuesday! So look out for an update on the App Store and the Google Play Store then. :)
Happy February, everyone! We're celebrating Cultist Simulator coming out on the Nintendo Switch by releasing a bunch of new Points Shop collectibles. We might add more in future if you like 'em. For now, here're the new recruits!
New animated avatars...
...new animated profile frames (one of which took nearly 300 hand-animated frames, because I am a derp)...
We've also released a shiny new trailer! 😱 It focuses on the Switch, but it works for all Cultist. It's also a totally different approach to our very gameplay-focused trailers before. And, it doesn't say the phrase 'PENETRATE THE HOUSE' and get itself banned on Facebook. Watch on our YouTube, and enjoy being talked to by our very first voice actor who totally sounds like a wizard.
SKELETON SONGS IS BACK
We've started Skeleton Songs season two, this time actually about GAMES! In episode one, Alexis and I talk genre: what it means, how useful it is, and how this relates to games like Cultist Simulator and Cyberpunk 2077. You can listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, YouTube or basically anywhere you listen to podcasts normally. Enjoy!
RUSSIAN TRANSLATION
Due to what can only be described as an omnishambles, the latest Russian localisation for Cultist Simulator is a bit of a mess. It looks like the translations got mixed up somehow so they're all in the wrong place - leaving things like 'Funds' translated as 'Старый штаб' - which means 'Old Headquarters'. What?! We're working with our localisation team to get an updated translation up ASAP.
Anyway. We're featuring a fun library each day over on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, in honour of National Library Lovers' Month and BOOK OF HOURS, so come choose your fave if you like. Wish us luck with the Switch, and hope you're hanging in there. <3
Just a quick update, Believers! We've just released a new 52-card deck in the Church o' Merch which finally lets you buy something with Neville's face on it. Meet The Sibyl's Leaves: a gold-embellished Cultist-style future-telling card deck based on 19th-century cartomancy!
The deck uses the usual 52-card system - Aces through Kings for Diamonds, Hearts, Spades and Clubs - but each card also includes a unique meaning. When dealt in the proper way, these meanings combine to give you an idea of your future! And don't worry, there's an instruction manual inside each pack. 😎
Alternatively, you can just use this deck for any normal card game you'd play with a 52-card pack. The only difference is occasionally you'll run into Saliba. Won't that jazz up your next game of solitaire?!
I can't promise international adepts that this'll reach you by Christmas, but I'll be filling orders more quickly than usual to give you the best chance.
More info and a bit of historical cartomancy over on the blog. Enjoy!
Happy nearly-Halloween, believers! It’s Alexis’s and my anniversary today, so what better way to celebrate than, er, to release Cultist Simulator to Steam, GOG and Humble in Japanese and German! They’re now out! YAY! Please tell all your Japanese- and German-speaking friends about it! 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
Thank you to everyone who helped us with beta testing this month. We’re extremely grateful! Please feel free to continue sending any bugs you find any of our translations to support@weatherfactory.biz.
It’s really weird not being able to read your own game, so we need your help to make sure that Cultist Simulator reads and plays well in different languages. Blessings of the Velvet will fall upon anyone who helps. Probably.
If Japanese and German do well, we may translate into other languages in future. For now, have a look in Cultist’s Workshop if your language is missing. A few trail-blazing linguists have uploaded fan mods for other languages (French, Italian, Korean…), so your language might be there if it isn’t in-game already. Enjoy!
Other news!
Well, we have two biggies to share. Firstly:
😱😱😱 CULTIST'S COMING TO THE NINTENDO SWITCH! 😱😱😱
I can't talk too much about it here in case Valve shout at me. But if you'd like more info or to be notified when it's out to buy, sign up below! As Ezeem might say...
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Secondly, we finally announced that the EXILE DLC is coming to mobile on Tuesday 3rd November, along with the Forbidden Bundle, a one-stop pack of all DLC at a reduced price. You can nab the mobile versions on the App Store or the Google Play Store if you ain't got them already!
Anyway. Happy Halloween weekend! HAVE A SPOOKY DAY.
I'm going to talk about where we are with Cultist Simulator localisation. Throughout this post, I've embedded thumbnails of some of the Q&As I've had with translators. Click on 'em if you want to know why translating this game is such a total pain in the bum.
ON THE MATTER OF THE GERMAN AND JAPANESE TRANSLATIONS: We've moved the German and Japanese localisations from the beta to the main branch. We had dozens of extremely detailed and helpful bug reports - particularly for Japanese, where the culture gap from English is much bigger - and the localisation is in much better shape now.
There will still be issues we've missed. Please let us know at support@weatherfactory.biz; and please include a screenshot, it's worth a thousand Google-translated words. Thanks for all your help.
ON THE MATTER OF THE RUSSIAN TRANSLATION OF EXILE:
Some Russian-speaking players have objected to some of the choices the translator made. It's impossible for us as non-Russian speakers to judge quality, so we need to be careful with feedback from the Internet (there's always the possibility a stranger is mischievous or wrong). Please keep sending us specific details of specific problems, and we'll run them by the loc company, who generally say 'yes that was a mistake' or 'oh that makes more sense'.
I think the Exile translation suffered particularly because this was the first bit of Cultist that the translator had worked on (the main Russian translation was by two other providers that we don't use any more). This meant (a) they had a *lot* to digest, because the Exile lore builds on the Cultist lore (b) there were inconsistencies with translation choices in the original game.
This is more generally a problem Lottie and I are wrestling with for future localisations of Cultist and of BOOK OF HOURS. My writing is notoriously full of arcane references and stupid quasi-puns that you only get after forty hours of play or whatever. Most professional translators don't have the grounding in Cultist lore, but we need to keep working with professional translators because fan translations are hard to wrangle to deadlines and production plans. We'll find a middle way.
ON THE MATTER OF THE CHINESE TRANSLATION OF EXILE:
Talking of fan translations... our Chinese translation of the original game was the only one done by volunteers, but by professionally organised volunteers working through Indienova. This meant the translation was actually very high quality, because it was performed by fans of the game who knew and cared about the lore.
Last night Lottie and I happened to look at the Exile page and found we'd dropped into Mixed reviews, because a number of Chinese volunteers are cross that they haven't been credited. Lottie and I are really sorry about this - we feel strongly about crediting people fairly. We're waiting on a final credits list from Indienova now. If you're a volunteer and you're missing from the credits, please please get in touch with them to make sure you're included.
(There's another issue, where the translation was apparently not polished to the volunteers' satisfaction, which I don't completely understand - I've had conflicting emails about this - but I can say we're talking to Indienova about it now and we'll update it as it comes.)
ON THE MATTER OF FUTURE LOCALISATIONS:
We've had people asking for Brazilian Portuguese, French, Italian and Spanish translations, among others. This really depends on how well German and Japanese do. It costs us tens of thousands of Euros and probably three person-weeks of my and Lottie's time to translate into a new language (in case you missed it, Weather Factory is only two people) so we have a really narrow pipeline. But it might happen!
ON THE MATTER OF COMMUNITY TRANSLATIONS:
I recently updated the modding framework so that community translation mods are much more practical, and we've currently got four community translations on the Steam Workshop. Thank you to the creators for putting the time and effort into this. I've added Workshop tags so translations should be easier to find now.
Hey everyone! Today we’re launching our Japanese and German beta. That’s over 160,000 forbidden words localised into two totally new languages, probably with a few typos and mis-translations at least. So please: help us make these translations shiny and great!
How to join the beta
Navigate to your Steam library and find Cultist Simulator
Right click and select ‘Properties…’
Select the ‘BETAS’ tab in the top of the pop-up window and choose ‘gateofhorn’ from the drop-down menu
Click ‘CLOSE’
If you weren’t on the beta branch already, you should see Cultist Simulator begin to update. When it’s finished, open the game. You should see Japanese and German in the ‘Languages’ menu.
Please remember to start a new game when you change language. If you change languages in the middle of a run… well. I hope you brought a top-tier rite and a bucket of luck.
How to submit a bug
Please email any bugs you find to support@weatherfactory.biz. Feel free to submit bugs of any kind (visual, mechanical, language, etc), though we ask that you only include one bug per email. If you find lots of bugs, send us lots of different emails!
Please include a screenshot of the issue if you can, so we can see the problem just as you do. Thank you! 🙏
Particular things to look out for
There are likely to be problems with key-mapping in Japanese (we don’t actually know what keyboards Japanese players use), and of course there are likely to be the occasional missed reference or janky translation in both languages.
How long does the beta last?
We’re releasing final Japanese and German to Steam, GOG and Humble on Thursday 29th October. So please: tell your friends and help us make Cultist Simulator shiny and joyous in time for Halloween! 👻
Happy October, everyone! This is the month of ghosts, ghouls and gruesome things, so what better time to release the EXILE DLC in simplified Chinese and Russian?!
Thank you for being so patient while we finished translating. The latest update of Cultist Simulator now includes full simplified Chinese and Russian, so you can play the whole game start to finish in either language.
To start an EXILE legacy immediately, simply click on the ‘DLC & Mods’ menu on the title screen and select ‘The Exile’. If you don’t see ‘The Exile’ as an option, check that you’ve purchased The EXILE DLC or that you own Perpetual Edition. If you still have problems, email support@weatherfactory.biz.
If you find any bugs in the Chinese or Russian versions, please email them to support@weatherfactory.biz. And remember: start a new game after changing languages. If you change languages in the middle of a game, things might… explode.
Finally, tell us your favourite Chinese and Russian streamers so we can offer them Cultist Simulator keys! We’d love to grow our communities in those languages, but need your help to do it. So tell us your favourite streamers, and tell your Chinese and Russian friends that Cultist Simulator is now 100% translated and ready for them to play!
I now have just a couple of features to add and a medium-sized list of bugs to fix before this can go to the live branch. The list of bugs will probably grow over the weekend, of course. Thanks, all, for your help so far.