Fear & Hunger
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.
- 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
The world of Fear & Hunger is VERY dark. THE GAME IS MEANT ONLY FOR MATURE AUDIENCES! Extreme violence and gore are everyday sights in the dungeons and death is one of the easier ways to go in the game. The game has drug and substance abuse, heavy themes ranging from self-mutilation to sexual violence. None of the themes are taken lightly however. They are all part of the world building and there to create the unique atmosphere where the game measures just how far the player is willing to go in order to survive.
Parts of the dungeon layout, events, loot and enemy placements are randomized with few different variations to keep things fresh with subsequent playthroughs. The game is designed with the classic trial and error formula, so you can expect to start the game over and over again. But as long as you learn from your mistakes, you can quickly find yourself at the deeper levels of the dungeon.
The combat in Fear & Hunger is turn-based akin to classic role-playing games, but with a twist of it’s 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 for survival in Fear & Hunger – You can find better equipment, learn different blood and love magic, fuse characters into each other, pray 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.
Game Discussion
Steam User 627
after playing this game, steam started regularly advertising games like "My futanari stepmom impregnated me" I assume because they share a Sexual Content tag.
while they are both undeniably woeful stories about the fragility of the human body and the endurance of the human spirit, i must say their gameplay loops are quite different, so its a bit surprising to see them lumped together
Steam User 235
BRO, THIS IS THE SECOND GAME WHERE I'VE BEEN VIOLATED WITHIN THE FIRST 15 MINUTES MAN. THIS IS THE MOST TRAUMATIZING SUMMER SALE ROULETTE I'VE EVER DONE!
Steam User 428
Adorable game, has similar vibes and gameplay to things like Stardew Valley or Animal Crossing
Is really good for when you're having a bad day or feeling hopeless about the state of the world irl
Steam User 450
in the dungeons. straight up "jorking it". and by "it", haha, well. let's just say. My peanits
Steam User 204
It doesn't matter how many eyes and teeth she have, or how big she gets, or how monstrous looking she is, she is my baby girl. She is the goodest bestest doggo and the greatest thing that ever happened in this godforsaken dungeon. Moonless, you are the most meaningful and valued member of this team!
Steam User 166
If you can look past the several blatant grammar mistakes, typos, and excruciating gameplay, you will soon find yourself believing this game to be an absolute masterpiece. If you've been scrolling through this page for a while, you've surely noticed that several users have pointed out just how unforgiving, cruel and sadistic this game can be. It takes every opportunity it has to completely screw you over and ruin your entire run in minutes, if not even seconds from your initial start. The save points are limited, the enemies can inflict you several status effects (of which you initially have no way of knowing about since the menu tells you close to nothing) and they can even tear you apart limb for limb, potentially handicapping you for the entire playtrough or even just straight up killing you from the infection. The loot is completely randomized, you have no possibility of knowing what you can obtain from a chest besides specific locations that grant you a guaranteed item if you meet the right criteria. And the worst part of it all? The vast majority of this game is completely RNG based. You get a coin flip which you can occasionally cheat yourself out of by either avoiding it completely or using two coins at the same time if you have at least one lucky coin; if you succeed then you get rewarded, but if you fail.. Terrible things might happen based on why you were using the coin flip to begin with. It's not something you can choose either, it just happens.
So why exactly should you play this game? So far i've just been groaning about how terrible of a game this is, so why would anyone put themselves under this torture?
Well; first off, if that was your initial thought, let me say that you're just straight up wrong.
Now for the actual explanation- i understand the users that complain about the "artificial" difficulty of this game and just how unpredictable and lazy it may seem. I get it, i've been through that as well; the first day i started playing i ended up wanting to punch a hole in the wall by the end of it.
But regardless- there's a certain charm to it.
You see, Fear & Hunger isn't a game that is hard and unforgiving just for the sake of it. It is not your friend, and that's exactly why it pushes you to understand its ways through tough love. Most of the content is left obtuse and there's close to no explanation regarding what you should do, the only way to ACTUALLY learn how to play the game the proper way is to suck it up and learn from trial and error. It is absolutely reasonable that your first playtrough may be horrible and in the first half hour of playing it, you might want to refund it without second thought. But if you have enough patience and give it a chance to redeem itself- you might notice just how redeeming it actually is.
Once you fully understand the game's mechanics and how to play in the most efficient way possible, the game starts to become a piece of cake. I assure you, that no matter your initial struggle- you will, eventually, have that "eureka" moment that all Fear & Hunger players have had where you'll notice that your progression becomes drastically higher all of a sudden. As you start to recruit more party members and discover new ways to have the strongest equipment possible without major risks, you become an absolute unstoppable killing machine that destroys anything on sight by strategically using your best options against the enemy.
Aside from this; most users argue that the limb system on players is absolutely ridiculous, and that it's impossible to defend yourself against a guard when with a swift move it can slice off your arm and bleed you to death. Or how frustrating it is to fight against a squishy jellyfish type of thing that can poison you in a single turn.
Well- turns out that there are perfect counters to BOTH of these situations!
There are several equipments that, if worn, can prevent limb loss on a countless amount of situations. Not only that, but there's a guaranteed item that can be obtained which deflects the effect as a whole! With it, you can effectively remove the entire limb loss system from your game, making it just a bad memory from your past mistakes.
As for the poison- there are certain characters that can be recruited which are LITERALLY IMMUNE TO POISON, one of them is straight up immortal as well!
As you can see; no matter how punishing a game mechanic may be- there is always a method to counter its effects, or straight up remove said mechanic from the game so that it doesn't affect you anymore. The game might be infuriating and extremely hard at the beginning, because it is literally designed to do so. Once you become powerful enough, it's literally a matter of deciding which boss you are going to eat for breakfast that day (and in some instances, that becomes quite literal. Not kidding.)
Putting the gameplay aside for a moment– let's talk about the story. Fear & Hunger is a game located in a dark, moody dungeon that is said to lead those who venture into it to insanity, if they even manage to come out of it alive in the first place. You start the game with the choice of selecting between four initial playable characters, all of which decided to venture deep into the dungeons for their own goals and objectives. But as you deeply explore the darkness that lurks within these humid walls, you quickly realize that there is no possible outcome in which you manage to get what you wanted in the first place. Knowing that, you venture even deeper into the dungeons; you either do so as a means to escape the dungeons and tell your folklore, or to unravel its mysteries and take part into a greater good, far greater than you. By doing so, you encounter several eldritch beings and concepts that should remain unknown to mankind, as you slowly lose your sanity in search of answers. You are fully aware you won't come out of it alive; and yet the knowledge you have gathered during your stay in the dungeon remains unsatiated, as the only way to satisfy it is to feed into the believes that have formed within.
So.. you liked that cool little narrative of mine? I hope so, because i couldn't find better words to describe the horrors that lurk within the lore of this game. I wouldn't know how to explain it in a matter you could understand without spoiling the whole thing, and i already feel like i've said too much- so i guess you'll have to find out for yourself! As a side note however: if you're well into the lovecraftian genre of media and devour existential narrative like it's nothing, then this game is absolutely for you. In the end, you will feel like you have just discovered an entire culture that hides underneath a videogame cape, and that's just a part of it. Like- come on, this game lets you fight literal deities and eldritch ancient gods while giving you the chance of knowing their entire history down to the very last detail, do i need to say further? The massive, enormous amount of pages in both the official and fan wikis is already enough to prove so.
Now, this review is already getting pretty lengthy- and if you made it this far, congrats! I dunno what to say in case you've read so much and still aren't sure whether to buy the game or not, so i'll be merciful and present to you one last summery before ending this review:
(for the final summary, please check the replies of this comment as i couldn't manage to fit it all into a single review lol)
Steam User 447
Fear and Hunger, ULTRAKILL, Noita, Amnesia, Cruelty Squad, ...My Summer Car. What the FUCK is going on in Finland to create such games?