Hunger Dungeon | a Review
originally published on 09/01/2024;
Hello everyone, I am the perpetually peckish G.E.M.Simov, a goon with unknowable motivations, come to tell you about the game “Hunger Dungeon”.
Simple review details - I rank games on an out of 10 basis, granting up to 3 points in 3 categories, as well as a last, single point from my own self, depending on my experience with it.
Gameplay
The Player controls a Character (the Player Character, the PC) by using the WASD keys, going up with W, down with S, left with A and right with D. The Player also has the option to attack by using the Left mouse button, which attack is performed in the direction of the cursor. With most characters, this also moves them forward a slight amount.
In addition to that, the Player has a special skill, dependent on their Character, that they can use with the Right mouse button - again, if it is an attack it is directed towards the mouse cursor. Lastly, the Player has access to three spell slots which can be filled up with scrolls, which scrolls provide a spell that can be used. These spell slots are bound to Q, E and R.
So, there are 16 characters, each with a unique basic attack (LMB) and a unique skill (RMB), as well as a unique set of passive bonuses or negatives, which makes for a very intriguing set of characters who provide lots of replayability to the game, even if only for the purposes figuring out what they do.
The game takes place over a number of rounds, with each round being held on a different map. The maps feature different outlines and hazards - mostly in the form of lava - and bring in some variability to the game. The goal for each map, and round, is to get the highest number of kills.
Who does the Player kill? Other Players - up to 5 others, who get to play as one of the characters, but as far as I am aware there is no option to have 2 Players playing as the same character… Yet I can’t know, because there is no longer any multiplayer in this game, on account of the fact that the servers have been shut down.
There’s more to the game than just that, of course. Each round is preceded by a shopping round, which allows the Players to buy things from a store with the money they have. Each Player has two slots of items that they can purchase, which items can give them any kind of bonus, from increased damage on basic attacks to specialized effects that occur in certain conditions.
There are also consumable items that can be purchased - ones that restore health, ones that restore mana and ones that restore hunger. Those are the three resources, including money, and they should be managed to the best of the Player’s ability, otherwise it is likely that they will die, repeatedly, and lose.
Health is self explanatory - lose it all and you’re dead. Mana is consumed when using spells, and it is feasible to win without using spells at all, but that’s a very harsh handicap. Hunger affects Health and Mana - the lower the PC’s hunger, the more negative effects will mount up.
It works on a threshold system - 0% hunger means that the Player is affected by the Very Hungry debuff, which makes them take loads of damage over time until they restore their hunger. 15% hunger applies the Peckish debuff, which does less damage over time than Very Hungry, but still does that much damage over time. Less than 20% hunger means that the PC will not recover health over time, will have low mana regeneration and knockbacks will be especially effective on them. Hunger between 20 and 60% means normal health and mana regeneration, as well as normal susceptibility to knockback. Lastly, having more than 60% hunger means high health and mana regeneration as well as low susceptibility to knockback.
Ultimately, it is good to be well fed, but getting fed is a difficult task, as hunger goes down steadily unless it is constantly replenished. Some items help with hunger - providing more sources of it or straight up increasing it by a certain value, but the best way to approach hunger is to deal with some of the objects on the map - mainly chests and mice.
So, map objects - there are mice, which run around and drop edible stuff when killed. There are spirits, which increase damage done by a certain amount whenever killed. Then, there are brushes, which can be hidden in - though they do not make one invulnerable - and can also be destroyed. Lastly, there are chests, which contain health, food, mana and money, requiring a bunch of hits to be destroyed.
Lastly, let’s get back to the shop and to the spells that can be purchased. There are a lot of spells - as there are a lot of items - and they cost some gold. However, unlike items, which are all 1 rank wonders, spells have up to 3 ranks, meaning they can be purchased up to three times to increase their effectiveness.
Here’s the tea, though - there are a lot of spells and items that are not initially available for the Player. Outside of matches - because a game of Hunger Dungeon is, essentially, a match - the Player has levels, which levels determine what they have access to, items or spells. On the one hand, this is a neat way of making progression. On the other, in a PvP game, making it so the more you’ve played the game the more options you have, you, as a designer, are making things a lot harder for your new Players to get into, because they are going to get crushed by the strong spells and items by Players who are also playing the strong Characters…
The strong Characters who can only be obtained by purchasing the Deluxe edition of the game, thus rendering them essentially Pay-to-Win options. That’s problematic, as there are only 3 Characters available for the Player by default, and there is no way of unlocking the other 13 Characters through playing the game.
And that’s a balancing oversight. Though let’s not get me started on balancing, because there are some spells that are clearly superior to others - examples include all the Totem Spells, which just create a thing that sticks around for nearly a minute and fires a projectile every three seconds, which projectile applies knockback and other negative effects, such as paralyze, ignite or freeze. Those are already some of the strongest options overall.
Then there are other spells that do nearly no damage and only apply an effect that might have synergies with some items, but is ultimately useless - a noob trap, if one will. There are also some Characters who are clearly stronger than others in almost every regard, and then there are some who are completely useless in almost every regard, again.
Even if that is not the case when it comes to some Characters, they wind up in a Rock-Paper-Scissors relationship, with some being incredibly strong versus specific others but very weak against another number of Characters.
Lastly, there’s the issue of the final round in a match - it requires that one Player channels on a teleporter for long enough, without taking damage, so as to be able to finish the channeling. Unfortunately, with any more than 2 Players on the map at one time, it is nearly impossible to do that, because, as mentioned - the Player needs to stand on the teleporter without taking damage, and in this game damage is dished out much like unwanted “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” advice is dished out by self-made entrepreneurs whose families are more than a little affluent.
Overall? This game is interesting in concept, but it lacks a lot in execution. The gameplay could have been tremendously fun if it was a bit more polished, if knockbacks were not as punishing as they were, if status effects were not so overwhelmingly potent, if some Characters were not as strong as they are, and if the bots worked better than they currently do. Alas, as far as is known, this game is abandoned, and so those things are not going to be resolved. 2/3
Presentation
Hunger Dungeon is a point-down 2D game that makes use of pixel-art graphics. The fidelity of said pixel-art graphics is quite low, being reminiscent of 16 or even 8 bit games, and yet it is more than enough to get the job done. That job? The conveyance of what things are and the breathing of life into the game itself.
It is not exceedingly beautiful, but it is not ugly. It is stylized, although not in the most immaculate of ways, and as a result of which I’d say it is more good than bad, even though it does feature some things that are off. Regardless, it manages to give enough detail to the many sprites that appear throughout the game that they are distinct from everything else, and it also allows for clear enough indications for projectiles and effects.
Hunger Dungeon does some things well, and some things very poorly. When it came to its gameplay’s presentation, I was left with the impression that its main gamemode centered around some kind of cooperation. However, it actually is not that at all and, instead, it is a free-for-all battle royale. Somehow, that got past me whilst reading up on the steam page and looking through the available gamemodes, which makes me believe that there’s something off about the manner of presentation.
However, everything else - tutorials, mostly - is very well done. The tutorial introduces the Player to most of the mechanics of the game, such as hitting, moving, healing, eating and so on, while anything that is not introduced by the game’s tutorial is told of to the Player through NPC speech bubbles or tips that constantly pop up in the upper left corner of the screen (the screen’s left, not the Player’s left).
Almost everything that needs to be conveyed is conveyed to the Player. Not only that, but the game has a number of musical tracks that accompany the gameplay. They aren’t anything exceptional, but they are more than passable. The sound effects in this game are also quite reasonably placed and utilized. Overall? It’s more than decent. 2/3
Story
There are some emergent potentialities for some emergent stories, but there is almost nothing. There is a dungeon that grants something to those who venture into it, but then there is only one chance to leave, so only one person can leave, and thus a battle royale takes place.
Simply put, there is no story beyond the main concept of the game, which isn’t really inspiring or interesting as a whole. The characters themselves are also more or less simply referential to popular culture and are not actual characters. The items in the game have some flavor text, but it is inconsequential. Overall, there is just nothing. 0/3
Legendary Point
Does this game get the legendary point, so craved and wanted by all and none at the same time? Simply put, no, because it is utterly dead. The servers are not even running, and so it cannot be played by multiple people. 0/1
Conclusion
4/10. A nearly average game that could have been a neat experience for parties or friend-groups, which is now nothing but ash. I would not recommend it, due to the fact that playing against bots is not fun at all, and there is no opportunity to play with people.
In the bag of mediocrity it goes, potential squandered and turned to dust.