# Cultist Simulator — Experiment. Die. Ascend.

> Roguelike narrative card game of forbidden knowledge and cosmic horror. (iPhone/iPad app by Playdigious.)

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/cultist-simulator/id1439886655 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`)
- Developer: [Playdigious](https://appshunter.io/developer/1041387229)
- Category: Games, Books, Card, Role Playing
- Price: $6.99 with in-app purchases
- Rating: 4.81/5 from 4,223 App Store ratings · 365 written reviews indexed
- Age rating: 12+
- Requires: iOS 12.0 · 331 MB
- Languages: English
- Released: 2019-04-02
- Data updated: 2026-08-28
- Monetization: paid
- User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/cultist-simulator/id1439886655/reviews.md

## What is Cultist Simulator?

SEIZE FORBIDDEN TREASURES. SUMMON ALIEN GODS. FEED ON YOUR DISCIPLES.

BE WARNED. This game has no tutorial - part of the challenge is figuring out how to play. It's hard, but keep trying, and you'll master it. Good luck!

In this infamous roguelike narrative card game, play as a seeker after unholy mysteries in a 1920s-themed setting of hidden gods and secret histories. Become a scholar of the unseen arts. Craft tools and summon spirits. Indoctrinate innocents. Seize your place as the herald of a new age.

Cultist Simulator was first released on PC and has more than 200,000 players all over the world. Now we’re bringing the cosmic mysteries of Cultist Simulator to mobile.

• Challenging roguelike gameplay - There is never only one history.
Cultist Simulator doesn’t hold your hand. Experiment, expire and transcend death with a story-driven legacy system. Over time you’ll learn enough to wrestle the game to its knees.

• Intense, immersive narrative – Combine cards to tell your own story.
A hefty novel’s worth of choice-based storytelling, from the creator of Fallen London and Sunless Sea. There are many paths through this game of ambition, appetite and abomination, and many ways your tale can end.

• A rich Lovecraftian world – Corrupt your friends and consume your enemies.
Search your dreams for sanity-twisting rituals. Translate grimoires and glean their lore. Penetrate the realm of the Hours and win a place in their service. Cultist Simulator brings the peripheral horror of Lovecraft’s tales to an entirely new setting.

Expand your knowledge with the DLCs: New Legacies, New Ascensions, New Mechanics...
• The Dancer - Join the Bacchanal
• The Priest - Knock, and Ye Shall Be Opened
• The Ghoul - Taste of the graveyard's fruit
• The Exile - Some there are who will not yield

If you encounter any issue with the game, please click on “Contact us” at the bottom of this page and give us as many details as possible regarding the issue and your device: https://playdigious.helpshift.com/hc/en/11-cultist-simulator/?p=ios

## Key features

- Challenging roguelike gameplay
- Story-driven legacy system
- Intense, immersive narrative
- Choice-based storytelling
- Lovecraftian world
- Card combination mechanics

## Pricing and in-app purchases

Base price: $6.99.

**One-time purchases**

| Purchase | Price | Type |
| --- | --- | --- |
| The Dancer | $1.99 | one-time |
| The Priest | $1.99 | one-time |
| The Ghoul | $1.99 | one-time |
| Forbidden Bundle | $6.99 | one-time |
| The Exile | $4.99 | one-time |


## Chart rankings

- #24 in Top Paid · Card (US App Store)
- #64 in Top Paid · Role Playing (US App Store)

## What do users think of Cultist Simulator?

Overall sentiment: positive

**Pros**

- 🤯 Fascinating and mysterious
- 🎨 Beautiful atmosphere and writing
- 🕰️ Compelling time management gameplay
- 🕵️ Rewarding sense of discovery
- 💡 Unique and innovative concept

**Cons**

- 🤯 Steep learning curve with no tutorial
- 🕰️ Intense time pressure and resource management
- 🧠 Confusing mechanics and unclear objectives
- 🧭 Frustrating lack of progress and repeated failures
- 🔍 Difficult to keep track of cards and game state

**Commonly reported bugs**

- Occasional crashes and save file issues
- Disappearing cards and UI elements
- Inability to access certain features like the club

**Most requested features**

- Add tutorial or in-game hints
- Provide more accessibility options for text size
- Implement save/load system to avoid losing progress
- Add DLC content like the Dancer storyline
- Improve card organization and UI layout

## Recent user reviews (10 of 365)

All indexed reviews: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/cultist-simulator/id1439886655/reviews.md

### 5/5 — Hard, rewarding, addictive

*2026-07-27, version 3.7.4*

It‘s real hard and yet it achives a really good balance. I think that it starts getting easier over time, overall the main problem I see is that it may be a little too addicting, yet, I still see foward to the dlcs and future updates 
10/10

### 1/5 — No information.

*2026-04-10, version 3.7.4*

The game gives you absolutely no information. You start off in a blank field with a card, figure maybe I should move this to here and that’ll do something and it does… It tells you nothing about what you’re doing or why.

### 3/5 — Играть в двоем

*2026-03-23, version 3.9.5 (Epic)*

Почему нельзя было реализовать играть сразу несколько партий? Как такое можно было придумать, что пока не доиграл - нельзя еще одну партию начать??? В чем логика?

### 5/5 — A powerful and unique experience

*2026-03-16, version 3.9.5 (Epic)*

A game about games, a game about existence, about living and dying and dreaming, about quests and temptatons and betrayals and sacrifices. It might entertain you. It also might change you.

### 2/5 — No tutorial

*2026-03-15, version 3.7.4*

Bought this game and I’ll never play it because there’s no tutorial and I’m confused.

### 2/5 — まとまりがない

*2026-03-11, version 3.9.5 (Epic)*

時間制限でプレイヤーを急かす割にテキストが多すぎる。1話目がチュートリアルなのもマイナス評価。1話目こそ最高の物語でなければならないのに。単調なのにプレイングの精度を求める点もマイナス評価。

### 5/5 — Onboarding like Jared Leto’s Joker

*2026-03-11, version 3.7.4*

The only way you’re gonna be able to play this game is if you go elsewhere and investigate other peoples work. Ones who’ve already figured it out because it was poorly designed -the on boarding was anyway.

If a game makes you stop playing it then walk out the chair to other sources in order to learn the rules that it intentionally didn’t share. There’s something of a problem there. I’d call it a stubborn mist step.

The simulation of discovering cult knowledge should have mystery and testy initiation…. Discovery should feel magical…  but they accidentally applied it to the UI and the game itself… so now it’s kind of difficult just to do basic things a lot of the time.. like comprehend UI and rules and goals.

The frustration puts you in a tail spin because you actually believe that you’re playing a game..

No, it’s not a game.. it’s eventually a game -a top shelf game.. but it’s the equivalent of telling a family, “Come out to my place. We’re going fishing, and its just a plane ride away”, but then leaving out the fact that it’s mysteriously 25 below zero where you live and the lake is under 10 feet of ice.

To approach it as if it is a game- is wrong -and you will hurt yourself if you do that. The game is under the 10 feet of ice that you need to excavate. So you’re not playing a game, you’re operating a tool that looks deceptively like a game for maybe the first day or two, because it has no rule book. No rules = no game..

So first, you have to excavate the rules in pure darkness -using the tool that- at this stage -appears to look exactly like a game ..  you are an archaeologist and your job today is to go in the football field and find all 10  needles that we hid at various elevations under the ground. The needles represent the rules.. so I did what everybody did. I went on the Internet and cut my time in half +not to say that my time trying to learn all of this was short. That’s the result of the games stubborn misstep design for a lot of players.

I couldn’t help but feel like I was doing other people’s jobs .. I went on the Internet to the wiki, and I went to the community forums where I met a whole bunch of other unpaid interns as well. Some of them were happily participating. 

If you’ve never played this, you just need to understand that you need to do a lot of work before you ever play the game.. don’t be fooled and think that you’re playing it when you hit the start button.  I’m here to tell you that the game is good when you gain board literacy.  I recommend begging, borrowing, stealing and cutting whatever corners you have to in order to experience it. GPT or your AI of choice is a free tutor and they won’t tell everybody how stupid you are and all the dumb questions you asked after you leave the room (the way that the real tutors do).

### 4/5 — Work grind

*2026-03-09, version 3.9.5 (Epic)*

The task for making money should be automated.

### 2/5 — 頭が良くない人にはお勧めしない

*2026-03-06, version 3.9.5 (Epic)*

覚えることが多く、検証することも多い。
私は頭が良くない側だったため、面白さを見出す前にギブアップ

### 3/5 — Info Box der Karten lässt sich nicht vergrößern

*2026-03-04, version 3.7.4*

Hätte man ja auch als schwebendes Widget programmieren können Oder eine Schrift Größen Einstellung für die Info Karten welche am Rand angeheftet sind. So ist der Text auf dem iPhone ein wenig anstrengend lesbar. Das kostet Sterne.

## Frequently asked questions about Cultist Simulator

### What kind of game is Cultist Simulator?

Cultist Simulator is a challenging roguelike narrative card game. It focuses on experimentation, discovery, and a deep, choice-driven story set in a Lovecraftian 1920s world. The game has no tutorial, encouraging players to learn through trial and error.

### What are the main gameplay mechanics?

The core gameplay involves combining cards to perform actions, such as researching lore, summoning spirits, or indoctrinating followers. Players experiment with different card combinations to uncover secrets, advance their goals, and survive the game's challenges. Death is a part of the progression, with a legacy system allowing players to learn from past attempts.

### Is Cultist Simulator free to play?

Cultist Simulator is a paid game. While the base game requires a purchase, there are optional DLCs available for purchase that add new legacies, ascensions, and mechanics to expand the gameplay experience.

### What platforms is Cultist Simulator available on?

Cultist Simulator was originally released on PC and has been brought to mobile devices. The description mentions its availability on iOS, and it is also available on other platforms.

### What is the setting and theme of the game?

The game is set in a 1920s-themed world filled with hidden gods and secret histories. It draws heavily from Lovecraftian horror, focusing on forbidden knowledge, occult rituals, and cosmic entities. Players take on the role of a seeker of unholy mysteries.

## Version history (last 5 releases)

### 3.7.4 — 2026-02-26

Bug fixes:
- Feeding “Reason” in the Physician legacy now gives “Passion” or “Talk” verb, as intended
- Fixing some font issues in Russian

### 3.7 — 2025-12-22

- Adding localization in Spanish and French
- Updating the localization for all languages and fixing some typos
- Few technical updates

### 3.6.1 — 2023-03-01

Minor fixes

### 1.9 — 2021-04-27

New languages added! 
Play Cultist Simulator in German and Japanese!

### 1.8.3 — 2021-03-08

- Fix save issue
- Minor localization fix

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## Related topics

[occult games](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/occult-games) · [hp lovecraft trivia](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/hp-lovecraft-trivia)

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*Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-28.*