Review: Hungry Horrors Early Access
If you love deck-builders but want to add a little spice to the genre, then Hungry Horrors is right for you! It’s a card-based roguelite where you complete levels by feeding instead of fighting monsters from British and Irish folklore, and level up by learning new recipes and taking on increasingly challenging monsters.
Hungry Horrors is Clumsy Bear Studio’s first game made by a real-life couple who share a passion for gaming. The game has just come out on Steam Early Access and I checked it out.
The game begins with a quick but thorough tutorial which introduces all the concepts necessary to play the game. Hungry Horrors then deviates from most deck-builders in a couple fun ways. It’s delightfully diegetic in gameplay. You spend less time navigating through maps and menus and more time moving the princess main character through a pixelated side-scrolling world which is a refreshing balance in a typically UI-heavy genre. The side-scrolling environment made me instinctively treat it like a platformer, a habit I had to break as I kept hitting the select button in an attempt to jump.
It’s also unique in its combat mechanics. Instead of a health bar trickling down, the monsters creep closer as the feast progresses. When they reach the princess, she gets defeated in different ways depending on the monster.
The story drawing from British and Irish mythology feels clear and strong in a way that doesn’t feel like generic swords and sorcery fantasy. The dialog is simple but cute. Each character has a distinct personality from the caddy cat to the quirky Merlin. The game is also surprisingly deep in its blend of monsters and dishes. It’s delightful to view the detailed information on each real dish and folklore. I learned a lot as I played the game.
Each of the distinctive creatures came with a lot of detail as well. I was amazed at how each of them defeated the princess with a surprising and special animation. Even the princess’s cat companion had something new to say whenever I died.
The art is full of whimsy and magic. Hungry Horrors has several novel biomes each with its own set of monsters that added to the atmosphere. The art style manages to make the monsters scary and adorable at the same time. The only downside I had was a few mismatched pixel sizes in the assets that took me out of the environment a bit.
The music also enhances the atmosphere with enchantment. It never became annoying. The sound design also flowed well and never became repetitive.
Hungry Horrors was very easy to pick up and understand. The controls were very intuitive, and the game always gave me relevant information without needing to dig through my menus which made it easy to play. For instance, when getting a spice, there’s a tooltip that shows how many dishes it can apply to. If you’re in the sticky situation where you don’t have any dishes in your hand to suit a creature’s taste, the cat will let you know if there’s an item in your inventory to help.
The UI was very intuitive as well. In some games, I will miss things due to my color-blindness, but not so with Hungry Horrors. Each of the UI elements had different symbols as well as colors so I never made a mistake picking the wrong card. However, I sometimes had issues with the pixelated and stylized fonts. While it was thematically appropriate, there were many times I got numbers mixed up since for me, it was hard to tell the difference between the characters for 3, 6, and 8 and I didn’t see an option to change the font.
The game was very well polished and smooth. You could tell the developers put a lot of time into perfecting the gameplay and user experience. In the time I played it, I only encountered 2 minor bugs with incorrect data, but I know this is an early build that they are diligently working on.
It was very easy to get into the game initially and I easily beat the first section, but the difficulty curve was very steep. It took me several runs before I made any real progress and felt stuck. I found myself getting frustrated because setting up a run would take me a while to plan out only to die shortly into the first room. I also found I could quickly progress in some areas like gaining a lot of energy, but I would quickly die before I had the chance to use it. Once I got over that initial difficulty spike, it quickly became fun where I felt like I had time to strategize with my dishes and potions.
What really stands out to me in Hungry Horrors is the love and passion only indie developers can craft into a game. Scott Fitzsimmons and Jerzy Pilch are a power couple with a passion for gaming. With Scott’s software development background and Jerzy’s social media and marketing skills, it’s clear they put their time and love into this project. I’m excited to see what they come up with next!
While the difficulty curve may frustrate new deck-builders, Hungry Horrors is a passionately crafted, must-play title for those seeking a rare twist on the genre.
Hungry Horrors is in Steam Early Access now.
Score: 7/10
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