A lot of reviews here have said somethingt to the effect of "This game isn't for everyone" or the like. I'll be blunt: They're entirely correct.

Cultist Simulator is at its core, a game about resource and risk management and careful exploration. It's not, in my opinion, a roguelite, much like how Sunless Sea isn't really one either. Your runs are merely steps in a journey of discovery, since all of the interlocking parts are the same. Imagine you have an infinite supply of clocks, and ytou are tasked with discovering how they work. Since you have infinity of them, it's fine if, upon taking one apart, you can't put it together again. Hell, it's fine if you force a part out to get a better look, since you've another clock at the ready. The one caveat is that you have to open the clock again, and start all over.

While this is a bad metaphor, I feel it explains how it feels to progress in the game. Your initial journey will be stumbling. You might not understand why you lose. You might not get how to escape your job. You might only learn, perhaps, how to eke out a simple existence in a menial job. But you can take that experience, and apply it to the next go, and it'll work. So you can take another risk. Maybe talking openly about the occult isn't as scary as it seemed last time. Maybe dreaming with this resource instead of that item will yield something of value.

You do all this with a card-based interface. Every item, person, tome, etc is a card. Every action is a box for cards to go into. You can't shove every card into every box, but it's surprising how much the game lets you try. Some boxes you have no control over, and these are basically your ticking timers of things you must be careful of - do you have money, to eat? Have you allowed yourself to fall into despair? And others are bizarre and mysterious in nature - Dream at first seems to be about resting on 'things', but soon becomes so much more.

As the game says in its own opening, taking risks and exploring are the core tenets of Cultist Simulator. There are elements of luck, certainly. But all the working parts are the same each time. You'll always learn to dream... properly, the same way, for example. Applying THIS to THAT will usually result in THOSE.

You will need a lot of time, a willingness to part with it, and patience. The game is not fast, it can be tedious and sometimes unrewarding. Luck can turn on you harshly, and resources within it may be limited in ways that can ambush you. But it's well made and decently executed, which earns a reccomendation from me.