Finally playing Cultic

Date: 2023-11-11

Cultic is a retro style first person shooter made entirely by Jason Smith. It came out in 2022, and based on videos I was really excited for the release.

Except I couldn't play the demo. It was so sluggish that I could only play it with 10 fps. I tried to tinker with settings, but each time, I got more sad that I could not play this fantastic looking game. The most I could press out of it, was 25 fps. At first I though it was because of Unity, but I can play DUSK just fine, and it also uses Unity.

Fast forward today when I saw a Retro Shooter Sale on Steam, and of course Cultic was on the list.

What if I buy the game, maybe the full release is different than the demo? And even if I can't make it work, I can refund it, as long as I am under 2 hours…

While I was downloading the game, I went to ProtonDB, a site which has tips for running games with Valve's Proton, to see if there is a solution for sluggishness. Luckily tons of people shared their experience, and gave options to try out.

I switched to Experimental proton first, but for the second try I downloaded the latest GE Proton, which is 8-23 at the time of writing. I could run the game at 1080p, FOV 85-90, minimal shadows, medium light, pixel scaling at medium (8-10) with 60 fps. The gameplay came alive more than before. The only problem I have is the game still starts slow, but it's alright, since I can make coffee and go to the toilet at the same time, then just start playing. Even how the game started made me smile, since even the menu was slow before.

I don't know why I did not try these options before, but I am happy that now I did. The game is absolute blast to play even on my not so good computer.

I may stream it in the near future, but currently I have problem with my second monitor, so I don't know when I will do it. I will also make a little note for the specifics tweaking I've done.