Cultist Simulator: A Card-Driven Descent Into Cosmic Horror

By Nham Vu · Updated July 2026

Cultist Simulator is a card-based simulation game built by Weather Factory, designed by Alexis Kennedy (the writer behind Fallen London), and published by Humble Bundle. It first launched on Windows, macOS, and Linux in May 2018, with mobile ports handled later by Playdigious.

There's no tutorial holding your hand here, and that's the point. You're handed a stack of cards representing your character's health, money, reason, and obsessions, and you're left to figure out through trial, error, and a fair amount of dying what any of it actually does. I've put well over a hundred hours into this game across three ports, and it still catches me off guard.

What Kind of Game Is Cultist Simulator?

Cultist Simulator is a solitaire-like card game wrapped around a Lovecraftian mystery cult narrative set in the 1920s. You drag cards onto slots to trigger recipes, most of which cost time, sanity, or money and produce new cards in return.

It plays less like a board game and more like a spreadsheet with teeth. Every session is a balancing act between feeding your character, keeping them sane, funding your cult, and not attracting the attention of investigators who will happily end your run.

Is Cultist Simulator on Switch?

Yes, Cultist Simulator is available on Nintendo Switch, alongside PC (Steam, GOG), iOS, and Android. Playdigious handled the console and mobile adaptations, and the Switch version plays comfortably with either touch or the joy-cons for card dragging.

The mobile and Switch versions carry the same core content as PC, though patch timing can lag slightly behind. Weather Factory's last major update pushed the game to version 3.6 across supported platforms.

• PC (Steam, GOG)
• iOS
• Android
• Nintendo Switch

How Do You Play Cultist Simulator Without a Tutorial?

You start by dragging your character's Health, Reason, and Funds cards onto job or study slots to keep them alive while you experiment. The game genuinely wants you to fail your first few characters before anything clicks, so don't treat an early death as a bug.

What trips up new players most is hoarding cards instead of spending them. Cards decay, expire, or become useless clutter if you sit on them too long. The best players I've seen treat their hand like a kitchen, not a museum: use ingredients before they spoil.

• Feed and rest your character before pursuing lore
• Start a small trade or job for steady funds
• Read every card's expiry text before hoarding it
• Keep an eye on Dread and Fascination as they build toward events

What Are the Cultist Simulator Endings?

Cultist Simulator has multiple endings tied to Ascension paths, called Longs, Names, and other esoteric routes, each unlocked by pursuing a specific god or mystery to its conclusion. Ascending isn't the only goal, though; plenty of runs end in death, arrest, or madness, and those count as story too.

In practice, your first successful run will probably be a modest one, maybe founding a small cult or securing a quiet, comfortable life rather than transcending into godhood. Chasing a full Ascension usually takes a second or third character once you understand which recipes feed which mystery.

Where Can You Find a Cultist Simulator Cheat Sheet or Guide?

The Cultist Simulator Wiki (hosted on Fandom) is the most complete community reference for card names, recipes, and expansion content. Steam Community guides also cover specific goals like reaching your first Ascension without DLC.

I'd rather point new players toward a short cheat sheet covering starting recipes than a full wiki dump, honestly. The joy of this game is in figuring out the systems yourself; save the wiki for when you're stuck on a specific late-game mystery, not for your first hour.

Does Cultist Simulator Have Expansions or a Sequel?

Cultist Simulator received several story expansions after launch, including content adding new starting characters and mystery lines, and it was nominated for BAFTA Games Awards for Debut Game and Innovation. Weather Factory followed it up with Book of Hours, a spiritual successor in a similar card-driven vein rather than a direct Cultist Simulator 2.

If you finish Cultist Simulator and want more of the same DNA, Book of Hours is the natural next stop, though it trades the cult-building loop for a librarian sorting through occult texts.