Fishing minigames have become a phenomenon in the world of video games. People are spending hours reeling in and letting go of the big one in their favorite games, even if they never once dreamed of picking up Sega Bass Fishing. It is understandable then that someone would try to capitalize on this by wrapping up such simple mechanics in a unique coat of paint. Unfortunately, the same joy I feel while catching carp in Stardew Valley does not translate to My Little Blood Cult: Let’s Summon Demons whatsoever.
The aforementioned coat of paint is that of a cult simulator. Weirdly, fishing and cults have also become a reasonably popular combination as of recent. Though initially disturbing, with high levels of human sacrifices, gross insides of fishing holes, and solid diversity in the catches, it quickly becomes rather monotonous and repetitive. After the first 15 minutes, the pace of experiencing new aesthetic elements comes to a tiresome crawl.
The ultimate goal of My Little Blood Cult is filling out the four currently available grimoires with different demons and objects, obtained by combining different bait to attract certain types. Each book has a unique selection. These are split into ranks, with the rarer ones requiring the player to experiment with reusing the previously caught ones to attract new ones. There are also different levels to the fishing hole, which can be reached by purchasing increasingly expensive reels, and rods which are more effective at catching demons, spirits, creatures or the undead.
In the beginning, when the player is given a sizable sum of money to spend however they want, there is a nice feeling of variety when picking between the different aesthetics of the books. The art is solid and some of the designs did catch my eye, especially in the fourth one. But once I started running into the same ones over and over again, no matter how much I tried to mix things up, I noticed I had run out of not just money, but also the blood vials that allowed me to play the game.
Here is where the ugly parts of what is an experience clearly designed for mobile phones rear their ugly head. My Little Blood Cult has an awful real time-based system for its resources. While the daily and weekly quests are perfectly acceptable, some things just do not make sense. Firstly, the blood vials. Creating each takes up five minutes, the timer for which runs even if the game is closed, or 50 coins. All items I owned would sell for 25 coins each, meaning it does not make sense to ever spend them on vials.
The real kicker is that the vials max out at three. You cannot own more than that. Each cast that uses up the vial would provide me with between 30 to 40 seconds of gameplay, only around eight of which was me interacting with the fishing minigame. The rest is watching as the hook goes down and then back up. This means that to play this game most efficiently, the player would have to play for around one and a half to two minutes every 15 minutes, with only 25 seconds consisting of engaging with anything actively.
This is a terrible system. Nobody would play fishing minigames if they had to wait 15 minutes between every three attempts. There is currently absolutely nothing to do while waiting for the timer to tick down and using the coins early on to speed up the process wastes the quickly deteriorating resources. You can visit the shops to check the stock, or the library to see your progress, but these, realistically, are not activities you will participate in once you know anything about My Little Blood Cult. At best, they will waste 10 seconds. At worst, they will cause the game to stop responding.
The bizarre choices do not end there. There is a punishment system for failing to catch anything during a cast. Baphomet overtakes you and you cannot cast again until the timer ticks down. For me this was two minutes every time, perhaps at later stages the timer grows, but if over half of the game is waiting, then how is a shorter waiting session even a punishment? On top of that, it can be skipped by paying 500 coins: the equivalent of several hours of progress.
I looked around a bit more and noticed that several locations have yet unavailable clickables, such as a “gold” stand which I can only assume will soon turn into a cash shop. The two music tracks began driving me crazy, one featuring what sounds like a poor MIDI cover of a spooky track that transitions into a regular instrumental cover soon after, and another with a high-pitched note that lingered for so long that it would physically hurt my ears. The lack of sound effects for the important gameplay elements led to me feeling nothing while succeeding, while the menu sound effects sounded like they were recorded from a different game on a webcam microphone.
And this is all in favor of what I can only describe as the most flavorless fishing minigame I have ever played. Pressing or tapping the button makes your box go left while letting go causes it to move right, but it may start at different positions on the bar, and the rods which should help you never seem to make any palpable difference. There is the added element of catching astrology symbols with a different button, which in other games would be something like an optional treasure, adding a risk vs reward factor. Here it is just a part of the monotony, while also adding to the disorientation by moving the main button down the moment they appear.
Never has catching a moving object in a little box felt so lifeless. Something so joyous that it became an inextricable part of positivity in gaming inserted into the core of a monotonous, bland experience. It does not make me want to return for two to three minutes (if it can run that long without a major issue) every four hours, let alone every 15 minutes in its current state. Even for the biggest enthusiasts of cult aesthetics, fishing minigames, or both, My Little Blood Cult: Let’s Summon Demons is a game I currently cannot recommend.
Mateusz reviewed My Little Blood Cult: Let’s Summon Demons on PC with a review code.
