Hungry Horrors is a unique deck-builder about feeding monsters out now

Gather ingredients, make dishes and feed all the strange creatures in a deck-builder that manages to set itself apart from the others in Hungry Horrors. Note: key provided by the developer.

Hungry Horrors just launched into Early Access and it's incredibly promising! I'm still going through it to test out all the different dishes and combinations but it has been really rewarding to go through and it's working really nicely with the Linux version too.

You're a princess, initially in some sort of prison when a magical cat breaks you out and you're given a task — crawl through the dungeons to keep all the monsters fed and happy. To eventually reach a dragon and satisfy their hunger. I've played a lot of deck-builders and they're almost always about fighting, but thanks to the feeding mechanic the flow of it feels overall like quite a fresh take on the genre that's inviting to players new and old to deck-builders.

The way the a run works is like this: you go through the castle and combine a bunch of ingredients you have available to build your deck of dishes and then choose an area to to walk through like a basic side-scrolling dungeon crawler with different battles and events. As you encounter enemies they each have a hunger meter you need to fill up by throwing dishes at them and once they're full, they vanish leaving behind a bit of loot for you. However, each turn they will potentially inch closer to you (or use an ability or an attack). So it's all about using your limited turns and different food dish combinations wisely. If creatures make it to you or your energy gets exhausted from enemy attacks or discarding too many dishes - it's all over and back to the castle you go to try another run.

Some cheeky enemies can even pinch ingredients from you, and run away with them if you don't take them down by filling up their belly in enough turns.

It's the way all the dishes and bonuses work together that makes it a real joy to play. Each creature has their own likes and dislikes, and each dish can change what the creature is craving to give you a juicy bonus towards filling up their hunger meter. You have to figure that all out as you go through each new enemy and try each different dish, so the early hours in the game can be a bit hit or miss on your runs until you build up that knowledge. That doesn't make it difficult or frustrating though, as the discovery is part of the fun. If you get their likes and cravings correct, you can end up with multiple bonuses in a row to ridiculously boost a single dish and end up filling up their hunger rather quickly to carry on exploring.

Check out the release trailer:

YouTube videos require cookies, you must accept their cookies to view. View cookie preferences.
Accept Cookies & Show   Direct Link

Early Access features:

• Five playable biomes: Caves, Woods, Bogs, Meadows, and the Town, plus the Dungeon and the Kitchen.
• 20 folklore Horrors, drawn from British and Irish myth, including Dullahan, Jenny Greenteeth, and Queen Mab.
• 42 playable dishes based on real traditional recipes from Britain and Ireland.
• 8 legendary characters to encounter, such as Herne the Hunter and the Wulver.
• Seasonings, cookware, potions, and artefacts that alter how you play.
• Core progression through the Book of Taliesin, unlocking new mechanics and strengthening future runs.
• Unique fatality animations for every Horror.
• Five original music tracks composed for the game by Henry Taylor.
• Easter eggs, unlockable mechanics, Steam achievements, and hidden interactions.
• Full controller support, plus mouse-only and keyboard-only play modes.

Really thoroughly enjoying it so far and can't wait to see what the developer cooks up for us in future updates. It's 30% off until February 2nd so you can go and taste it for £5.94 until then when it goes back in the oven for £8.49. Pretty great value for what it offers.