Released on August 11, 2022, Cult of the Lamb has drawn rave reviews for blending roguelike world-building with farming, colony management, and extensive resource collection. The plot concerns a possessed Lamb tasked with expanding his cult by venturing out to five different territories, rounding up as many raw materials as possible, and returning home to expand his new settlement's harvest bounty and keep his overlord happy.

The various resources in the game range in face value, scarcity, durability, functionality, and more, all of which help the Lamb construct his cult as easily and successfully as possible.

Shell

With only five available hidden snail shells available in the game, players might think the resource's scarcity equates to value. Yet obtaining the snail shell resources is used in the game to obtain the Snail Follower Form, something most players will neither need nor waste their time trying to find. The best way to find them in Anura is to use the fishing ritual and repeat the crusades, where the snail shells will spawn on their own.

While bringing snails back to the Lamb's farm may prevent some pests and harmful insects from destroying the harvest, snails also tend to eat foliage in the process, making it a zero-sum resource. Moreover, with only five available, the resource isn't worth investing in as they take forever to find and rarely pay off.

Bones

Human and animal bones are a resource in Cult of the Lamb used to perform sacred rituals regarding the dead. Players can either send a Cultist to the Missionary in level 2 to collect bones, or they can ransack corpses inside graves and dungeon crypts to obtain them. More a form of currency than an item used to build, bones are a faith-based resource bordering on superstition.

Players can take bones back to their temple and increase the faith of the village parishioners, which in turn boosts morale and helps people solve problems in the cult. While an injection of faith is needed at times, the other resources are far more valuable when it comes to expanding a sturdy colony.

Crystal Shards

Crystal Shards are a resource primarily used to build pretty decorations in the game, including lamps, lanterns, windows, and flags. While some very rare buildings like Missionary III require as many as 16 crystal shards to build, most players will use them to adorn the elegant appearance of their buildings.

A materialistic resource that emanates a mystical aura with radiant beauty, Crystal Shards may be priceless due to their rarity but are largely impractical for expanding one's colony. It can also be used to upgrade the lighthouse, a marginal effect at best.

Spider Silk

Primarily used for interior decoration, Spider Silk is a moderately valuable resource to obtain in the game. Delicate yet durable, the strands pulled from spider webs are ideal for crafting lanterns, pillars, torches, and ornate sculptures, and can be found by destroying the Silk Cocoons in Silk Cradle.

While certainly pretty to look at and practical to use for increasing the elegance of one's colony, Spider Silk is nowhere near as durable as some other building resources, it can be used to build the compost bin, which does help fertilize crops.

Menticide Mushrooms

A modicum of enlightenment can be attained by collecting Menticide Mushrooms in the beloved dungeon crawler, but players must risk a deadly fungicide on their farm as a tradeoff (they also take a long time to grow). Players who find the hidden mushrooms in Anura are best to use them to obtain the Talisman Fragment from Sozo, which results in a Brainwashing Ritual akin to psychedelic hallucination.

For instance, if a player brings 20 Menticide Mushrooms to Sozo, they will learn a psychedelic brainwashing ritual that keeps their cult followers happy and obedient. Akin to raising the faith with bone collection with the added benefit of harvesting the fungi for their own cult, Menticide Mushrooms are slightly more valuable.

Wooden Plank

Wooden Planks are a resource comprised of three refined pieces of lumber that are used in the game to erect sturdy structures meant to withstand the test of time. With a sell value of eight coins per plank, it's hard to discount the usefulness of the pricey resource, especially given the primacy of building and expanding the farm.

Used to build everything from missionaries, shelters, and outhouses to healing bays, compost bins, fertilizer silos, and more, the only real drawback to the wooden planks is their inalterable dimensions. They are big, heavy, and cumbersome to carry and aren't quite as versatile as separate pieces of lumber.

Lumber

Speaking of lumber, wood is the most common resource for building in the much-anticipated 2022 indie game. To obtain it, players can chop down trees, visit lumber nodes in dungeons, send errand boys to the base Missionary, or build their own lumberyard. Aside from using lumber to create wooden planks, prisons, refineries, temples, and many more durable structures, three pieces can be used to fix collapsed shelters and sleeping bags.

What makes Lumber more valuable than Wooden Planks is that, aside from being a building resource, it can be used as a form of currency in the game as well, adding inherent value to the item as a tradable commodity as well as a foundational building block.

Stone

To build the most indestructible colony imaginable in the acclaimed retro-style roguelike game, using stone to fortify each structure is absolutely paramount. A step up from lumber, stones are also used as currency resources as well as raw materials for mounting the sturdiest buildings on the land. Three stones can be refined to become a stone block, an even stronger resource for colonizing.

Whether found by mining rocks, visiting dungeons, constructing mines, or venturing to the first Missionary, stones are incredibly accessible yet extremely valuable. Unlike gold, its value isn't derived from its scarcity. However, stone can also be used to fashion dazzling decorations as well as tabernacles, fire pits, statues, summoning circles, and the like.

Camellia

In order to grow the cult as big as possible, the lamb needs as many healthy followers as possible. To ensure such, obtaining Camellia and planting it on his farm is one of the smartest things he can do. Camellia has healing properties that will instantly make a follower feel better.

Aside from healing ill followers and being used to build the first two medical bays in the game, Camellia is also a gorgeous red flower used to adorn flower beds, wall pots, vases, barrows, watering cans, and other decorative vessels. With multiple functions to help keep the colony as happy and healthy as possible, Camellia is a must-have resource in the game.

Gold Coin

No resource in Cult of the Lamb is more valuable or useful than money. A tradable asset that can also be used to purchase the aforesaid raw materials, gold coins are the economic lifeblood of the popular 2022 farm game and are required for every meaningful transaction en route to expanding the colony.

Moreover, with the proper Doctrines, coins can be used to purchase loyalty from cult followers, ensuring a stronger colony for the long haul. Coins are also used to refine even more invaluable gold bars, which use the most precious scarce metal on Earth to barter, build, and craft the most durable, expensive, and handsome structures on the land.