Fear & Hunger
Fear & Hunger is a horror dungeon crawler game released on 11 December 2018. It is the first game of the series, currently available in its 1.4.1 version. It was created with the RPGMaker engine. The game is developed by Miro Haverinen and published under Happy Paintings. Fear & Hunger is set in a fantasy medieval setting and centres around delving into the dungeons of Fear and Hunger located by the town of Ma'habre. Aside from the various horror game inspiration the game has, the lore of Fear & Hunger features notable lovecraftian elements both in setting as well as through homages.
CAUTION! Fear & Hunger is a grim dark game made exclusively for mature audiences. It features themes such as gore, violence, drug and substance abuse, self-harm and sexual violence.
The developer has made clear none of these are taken lightly, rather serving to give the game a unique atmosphere of serious consequences and hopelessness.
Official synopsis
Fear & Hunger is a horror dungeon crawler set in the dark and hopeless dungeons of fear and hunger. Four misfortuned adventurers dwell deeper and deeper to the darkness and uncover the secrets this ancient fortress holds inside. The fortress works as an ancient nexus for different planes of existence. The depths are in an eternal turmoil as both old and new gods struggle for power, it’s up to the players to choose their position and stance in all of this. The game is a hybrid of survival horror and dungeon crawler genres with its influences ranging from Silent Hill to Nethack. There are roguelike elements to the game as well as a heavy foundation of a j-RPG. Fear & Hunger is heavy on atmosphere and ruthless in its difficulty.
Features
- Oppressive and relentless atmosphere
- 4 different character classes and many additional characters to recruit
- Unforgiving and unique gameplay
- Randomized elements to keep the game fresh with subsequent playthroughs
- Turn-based Strategic Dismember Combat System
- Graphical art style mixing pixel art with digital painting
- Original ambient soundtrack creating the dreary mood
Playable characters
Additional information
THE GAME IS MEANT ONLY FOR MATURE AUDIENCES!
The world of Fear & Hunger is extremely dark, depicting casual nudity, rape, sexual content, extremely casual drug and substance abuse, and extreme depictions of violence and gore. This is a game that is not meant for a casual game audience, as the themes that are in play are NOT taken lightly. These themes create a hostile, extremely cruel and vindictive atmosphere and serve to make the world of Fear & Hunger an extremely unique one, challenging the player and the characters in the world on how far they will go in order to survive. In many, MANY gameplay situations, it will be easier to end the run, or let death take your character simply due to the brutality of the game world.
Dismemberment is a core part of the combat, and is applied to all characters. Self-amputation is a mechanic of the game, and self-harm via alcohol, drugs and other substances are a part of keeping your characters alive.
Trial and Error is what Fear & Hunger is built upon. Your main leverage on the game is knowledge of this world and the mechanics, which are never explicitly explained and only exist, requiring exploration, testing, and most likely research if you wish to get good in the game. Mistakes are the only way to get proficient with anything in the game, and it's required to achieve a better ending. RNG is also a part of this game: with all loot, enemy placements, parts of the dungeon layouts, and many events being randomized for each playthrough to keep things fresh but to also not allow the player to have the comfort of relying on certain elements as some map spaces, which can be seen with the dogs at the start, where you can only avoid them on a certain seed, but not all of them, which discourages reliance on any RNG elements.
The combat in Fear & Hunger is turn-based akin to classic role-playing games, but with a twist of its own. You can target individual limbs of your enemies to dismember them strategically and thus maximize your chances for survival. However, just the same, enemies can also cut off the arms and the legs of your playable characters if you are not careful. You need to prepare well for every encounter if you wish to stay alive. But don’t forget that running away from threats is often the best solution as well. There are many ways to survive in Fear & Hunger - You can find better equipment, learn different blood and love magic, fuse characters into each other, pray to different gods, talk your way out of battles, meet new party members, snipe enemies from distance, use traps to disable them… and so on. The idea is to use what you got at your disposal and be creative with it.