With so many roguelike deckbuilding games out there, it can often feel like there’s too many eggs in one basket. Yet Hungry Horrors, now in Early Access on Steam, does things quite a bit differently to other titles in the genre. Let’s take a closer look, as we review Hungry Horrors!

What Is Hungry Horrors?

As mentioned, Hungry Horrors is a roguelike deckbuilding game. Created by a small and clearly passionate duo (yes, the game has, impressively, been fully created by just two people!), Hungry Horrors sees your adorably animated Princess tackling monsters from British and Irish folklore by giving them delicious, freshly cooked food. Capitalizing on their likes and cravings, you’ll build up chains of flavor and different food types to really satisfy the beasts, and leave them full enough to ensure that you don’t end up on the menu.

Though in many ways it does feel as if the main crux of the game is combat encounters, and despite the fearsome creatures you’ll come up against, it’s a much kinder and gentler premise than the majority of other deckbuilders. Your deck is comprised of recipe cards that you can put together using different ingredients you’ll gather on your travels, which can be upgraded and improved along the way too.

Is Hungry Horrors Fun to Play?

It’s certainly a beautiful game; Hungry Horrors is all dressed up in a lovely, retro-style pixel art aesthetic, with charming animation and a great soundtrack. The recipe-based gameplay, complete with all of the different taste and food preferences of the titular horrors you’ll be facing, can feel a little bit overwhelming at first; there’s a lot of elements to keep track of.

Despite that point, the game actually does a great job of simplifying all of its moving parts; tooltips and clearly defined bonuses are displayed where needed, and keeping combos coming soon becomes incredibly compelling. In a reversal of that point, it’s truly deflating to realise you have broken a big points combo too!

Between encounters it has the feel of an 8-bit platformer in some ways, and the encounters themselves feel unusual in that there’s no combat at all; no worrying about what your enemies are going to do from round to round: they’re simply going to eat you if they get close enough, and you need to use your cooking skills to ensure that doesn’t happen.

The bestiary in Hungry Horrors is impressively varied too, and the focus on creatures hailing from British and Irish folklore gives it an unusual menagerie of beasts that you may not have heard of, in many cases. The lore is all there, if you want to dive further into the backgrounds of these mythical monsters.

I also really liked the soundtrack, by Henry Taylor; it’s playful and energetic, with a kind of rock opera feel, and the writing reveals a whimsically dark and amusing script. It’s a great side dish to the main course of the gameplay and visual aesthetic.

The Card Gamer Verdict

Given that Hungry Horrors is currently in Early Access and thus technically still in development, we didn’t think it would be fair to give it a rating as if it were the final, finished product. That said, despite its incomplete nature, Hungry Horrors feels remarkably fully featured; it’s already an addictive, compelling and, more importantly, fresh experience. We look forward to seeing the second act of the story being added, along with more environments, new horrors and mechanics too, but it’s noteworthy that Hungry Horrors is worth your time even in its Early Access form.

You can buy Hungry Horrors from Steam using the button below:

Check out our reviews of other unusual digital card games, such as Into the Restless Ruins and Talystro.