Cultish Gameplay and Mechanics in the Games Cult of the Lamb and CULTivate

This paper provides a comparative analysis of the board game CULTivate and the video game Cult of the Lamb. In it, I focus on their gameplay and mechanics (e.g., the actions a player may take) to decode how these games have implicit theories of what cults are and how cults work. It situates these games and their implicit theories within recent debates on the rhetoric of cults and their representation in popular media. This paper concludes with suggestions about research at the intersection of Religious Studies and Game Studies with a focus on the design and experience of game mechanics.