Video Game / Fear & Hunger

Ma'habre - The city of the gods. You have seen it, haven't you? Since the day you embarked on this macabre quest of yours, you have seen visions of this city in your sleep.

—Release Trailer

Fear & Hunger is a Dark Fantasy Survival Horror Dungeon Crawler with Immersive Sim elements developed by Finnish indie developer Miro Haverinen and released on December 11, 2018.

Four unfortunate adventurers find themselves trapped in a dark, ancient fortress — a place infested by monsters and demons, where most who enter are killed or driven mad. The depths are in eternal turmoil as both old and new gods struggle for power. If the adventurers wish to survive, they must uncover the secrets the fortress holds within… but that won't be an easy task. The road ahead is fraught with death, horror, and failure around every corner.

The game is notable for its absolutely crushing difficulty, its complex mechanics that border on being downright obtuse, and its graphic depictions of gore, nudity and sexual violence. Citing Silent Hill and NetHack as its main influences, Fear & Hunger is not shy about its world's hostility towards the player, immediately throwing them into deep water with little instruction as to what they are meant to be doing. An absolutely brutal learning curve is present from the get-go, and there are plenty of curveballs (and other nasty surprises) waiting along the way. As they delve deeper into the mysterious dungeon, the player must carefully manage their health, hunger, and sanity, while battling the various horrors they encounter.

It is available for purchase on Steam and itch.io.

A sequel, Fear & Hunger: Termina, was released on December 10th, 2022. It takes place in the year 1942 after the second great war, taking a jump from medieval horror to the modern era.

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This game provides examples of:

• 24-Hour Armor: The Penance Armor can never be taken off once you put it on. The mechanisms in it ensure that it remains hermetically sealed shut when it closes, and the spikes inside it dig so far deep into your flesh that removing it would likely kill you anyway. Once you step into it, the text outright states that it will now be a part of you for the rest of your life. As such, when you wear the Penance Armor, you can't form a Marriage or participate in Sylvian or Gro-goroth's rituals, since those require you to strip nude.
• Amputation Stops Spread: There are many enemies capable of infecting the limbs of your party members, which if not dealt with will eventually lead to their deaths. Bonesaws found in the dungeon can be used to stop the spread at the cost of losing an arm or a leg. However, using green herbs can subvert this if you are able to find them, being able to cure infections without limb loss.
• Animate Dead: Various skeletons lying around the dungeon, as well as the ghouls in Ma'habre, can be reanimated into loyal party members if the player character knows the Necromancy spell. However, they can't be directly commanded and can't use magic.
• Anti-Frustration Features: Patch 1.3.0 has added the following for convenience:
  • After the introduction and choosing what skills and items your character will start with, you will be given the option of saving the game, saving you time should your character die.
  • You can now hold the Shift key while choosing heads or tails to toss two coins to improve your chance of getting an item or succeeding in an event. Lucky coins are required to use this feature, however. First introduced in the Termina demo, now usable in this game.
  • Possibly because he's needed for certain endings, Le'garde will not randomly go insane and attack the party the way other characters do if they equip the Miasma sword.
  • One of the game's only "safe" save spots is in the Tower of Endless in Ma'habre. This is a welcome help, since the area is stuffed full of difficult and potentially run-ending boss fights. Being able to freely save in-between each one is a lifesaver.
• Arc Words: You delved too deep.
• An Arm and a Leg: With dismemberment being a major part of combat, battles take a strategic approach. The body parts of a majority of enemies can be selected, and can be destroyed if enough damage is done. This is especially important when dealing with enemies capable of doing the same, as dismemberment can happen to your party members as well, resulting in not only limb loss but bleeding as well. Some accessories can subvert this trope: arm guards for preventing arm loss, leg guards for preventing leg loss, and averted with the Salmonsnake Soul for preventing not only bleeding, but also preventing the loss of all limbs.
• Arbitrary Headcount Limit: Four party members, including the protagonist, and no more.
• Art Shift: Dungeon Nights mode, which has a more solid-coloured, Animesque style.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Becoming an Abominable Marriage by Showing Love to someone while already a Marriage gives massive stat bonuses... but you're now so warped that you can't wear any armor, doing serious harm to your long-term survival.
• Batman Gambit: Le'garde's plan relies on the cooperation of someone else who entered the dungeon of Fear and Hunger in search of him, that person being able to actually reach him, and them continuing to aid the man despite him being unable to provide any details about themself.
  • In some ways, the gambit can work perfectly. D'arce, his former second in command who has feelings for him, was pretty much guaranteed to come to his aid. Cahara, a mercenary, is hired to aid Le'garde, and together the two can succeed. A Spanner in the Works is Ragnvaldr, who hates Le'garde and came to the dungeon simply to kill him. The gambit also leans on Le'garde's rescuers arriving in time to save him, which, depending on gameplay, they may not — incidentally, this is the outcome of Hard mode, no matter how fast you rush to him.
• Beyond the Impossible: A meta example. Before the S endings were added, the creator thought that beating the game on hard was legitimately impossible. Then Tolomeo did it on his stream, multiple times, including with the worst character.
• BFS: The two-handed Claymore weapon that you can find throughout the dungeon seems to be this, going by the visual depiction◊ of the blade. It's less a claymore and more a large slab of metal almost as big as the user is tall. This is confirmed by the aforementioned battle sprite of Ser Seymor, who if you defeat, drops this weapon. Really fitting, too, given the weapon is one of the best weapons to get in the game.
• Big Bad Wannabe: The Human Hydra is an absolutely horrific abomination made up of corpses that demands constant sacrifice from those near it... and that's all there's to it. It's a botched attempt at a eldritch ritual that presents no danger to those near it and relies on its intimidation factor to get anything done to the player, showcasing that being considered eldritch doesn't necessarily count towards being considered a threat.
• Bittersweet Ending: All of the S-endings, with the exception of the Knight's, have happy outcomes for the characters, but they're left haunted with their experiences in some way.
• Boom, Headshot!: The heads of most enemies have little health, making it easy to win fights decapitating them. However, it's extremely hard to hit the head without crippling the legs first, and some foes either have a lot of head HP or can keep going without their head. A few enemies are also capable of decapitating party members or ripping off their face, causing them to instantly die.
• Breast Attack: Some feminine enemies like the female Cavedwellers and the Cavemother have targetable breasts. Cutting them off often causes them to lose their balance and stumble for a turn.
• Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu:
  • After defeating Traces Of Gro-goroth in a brutal, drawn out battle, he'll seem more confused at the protagonist's resistance than anything else. If they clarify that they wish to "Crush the old Gods", he will inform the protagonist that not only is he a mere infinitesimal portion of Gro-goroth, but that he's more than capable of crushing them in that very moment. He then proceeds to shatter the protagonist's mind with eldritch knowledge of humanity's true form, resulting in Ending B.
  • Upon defeating the God of Fear And Hunger, the protagonist will abruptly collapse. They will reawaken in a dark field, and after a brief dialogue with the God Of Fear And Hunger, they pass away.
  • If the protagonist defeats Le'garde after he ascends to godhood, they will proceed to leave the dungeon; but they're so scarred and traumatized by their experience that they have increasingly vivid and realistic dreams of the dungeon, to the point where they eventually can't even distinguish them from reality any more.
• Call a Hit Point a "Smeerp": Body and Mind are counterparts to both Health and Mana/Sanity respectively, and are both set at 100 each, for the player's character as well as for every character that can be recruited. Certain enemies can also permanently decrease those stats, and sacrificing blood for Gro-goroth on a ritual circle causes a loss of 30 maximum body for the main character.
• Can't Have Sex, Ever: Some alterations to the protagonist will make it impossible for you to have sex, blocking you from showing love or participating in the bunnymask orgy
  • The Penance Armor is deliberately made so that it's nearly impossible to take off, and would've been very dangerous anyway. Even if you were able to take it off, the damage to the genitals would likely be too severe.
  • Becoming an Abominable Marriage causes you to suffer erectile dysfunction, so participation in Sylvian rituals is out of the question.
• Cast from Sanity: The majority of spells (as well as a few mundane skills) require you to spend Mind, making it possible to go insane from overusing magic.
• Cognizant Limbs: A vast majority of enemies in the dungeon have individual parts to be targeted.
• Controllable Helplessness:
  • If the player character ends up losing all their limbs and hasn't died, they won't be able to do anything. An option to quit breathing or hold on will appear, but holding on will do nothing, leading to the option to quit breathing to appear again.
  • If the player character is defeated by an elite prison guard, they will be locked in a special room with their legs cut off. While they can still crawl around, the elite guard will repeatedly beat them to death with a morning star over the next few seconds. There is no way out of the room, as the door requires a key, nor can you access the menu at any point.
  • If the player character is defeated by a lizardman, they will be locked in a room where they are flayed alive. The player is allowed to crawl around for about twenty seconds after this, but will inevitably collapse and die.
  • If the player character is hit by one of the swinging axes in the gauntlet, they will be cut in half, but allowed to control their character for a couple more seconds before they die.
  • There's one place, the latrine, where it's possible to drop down a pit and then find no way to climb back out. Every party member has unique dialogue referencing their predicament, because there's not much you can do but chat & wait to starve.
  • Taking the Blue Sin sword and failing to teleport away before the room collapses will kill everyone but your main character, who will be buried in rubble. Anything except stopping breathing will have no effect.
• Cosmic Horror Story: A more subtle version of it, but still. The few old gods that still exist are either evil or completely apathetic to the condition of the world. Even the traces of Gro-goroth are strong enough to drive the player character insane by showing them humanity's "true form". Meanwhile, the new gods are either madmen who lust for power, or well-intentioned men who became mad and started lusting for power after their ascension. The only silver lining in this is that you have the opportunity of becoming a fairly benevolent new god, at the cost of your human form; or you can drive forth the ascension of other gods, ones who might help drive humanity out of the Dark Age.
• Crapsack World: Europa is a medieval world mired in a dark age, where the land is afflicted by wars, poverty, diseases, monsters, and dark magic. Depending on which ending you get, the world can change, but not necessarily for the better. Ending A and C have you aid in the ascension of new gods — the God of Fear and Hunger and the Yellow King, respectively — who drive humanity into a new age through faith and warfare. Ending D1 has your player character drive the world back into the bronze age through constant violence and warfare. Ending D2 has your player character eventually lead a golden age, although it's only after the dark age ends that you begin it.
• Crippling Castration:
  • A number of enemies have their phalluses exposed (and some can make attacks with them). In many of these cases, the phallus can be cut off like any other limb. For some enemies, this is an Achilles' Heel, but for others, the only consequence is that they can't attack you with it.
  • Happens to the player character if they try to "make love" to the demon child.
• Critical Existence Failure: Played straight in most cases, but averted for certain situations. While simply taking flat damage with no additional properties only depletes your Body stat, other attacks can lop off limbs or inflict you with other status ailments that can eventually kill you. Against enemies, you are only going to be damaging whichever body part you're actually targeting, and usually attacks to anywhere other than the head or torso aren't lethal. However, many enemies in the game code have significantly higher health listed than what is functionally present in the game, and they will instead die once their health dips below 75% of their overall torso health. This is one reason why Damage Over Time is so powerful.
• Cult:
  • A depraved group of wolf-masked cultists can be found below the cave village. They appear to worship Gro-goroth, and perform acts such as orgies and Autocannibalism.
  • A similar group of naked bunny-masked cultists worshipping Sylvian can be found in the garden, having an orgy. Joining them will heal the player's party and avoid the necessity of a ritual circle to perform sex acts at the cost of a coin flip.
  • Dark Priests like Enki are not quite this, despite hitting a lot of the same themes. Background information implies that they're seen as the Token Evil Teammate of "regular" priests, dealing with the less savoury duties involved with worshipping the Old Gods.
• Cutting Off the Branches: Ending A is canon, as evidenced by the presence of the God of Fear and Hunger and mentions of the Cruel Age. Enki and Ragnvaldr also presumably survived the events of the game, as skin bibles that appear throughout Termina have been penned by Enki, and Ragnvaldr's descendant August appears in Termina. An entity appearing to be Le'garde in his "Yellow King" form from Ending C appears in Termina, as does Nas'rah after being burned in Ending B, implying those happened as well.
  • Endings D & E aren't supported or refuted by the sequel (as of version 1.9).
  • A possible alternative interpretation is that the S endings are canon, as none of them are mutually exclusive and none contradict the lore of Termina thus far.
• Damage Over Time:
  • Being poisoned or bleeding will cause a character to constantly take damage until they are cured (with the use of a white vial or a scrap of cloth, respectively).
  • If the player character is raped, they will suffer from anal bleeding, which is incurable outside of extreme measures such as the Marriage, and which will cause them to take periodic damage.
  • The gut worms status effect, given by certain enemies or by eating rotten meat, will cause a character's hunger meter to rise much more quickly. It is cured with the Worm Juice potion.
• Death of a Child: Cruelly followed in the case for the girl that you rescue from her cage on the first floor of the dungeons, as well as the demon child. They're fully susceptible to fear, hunger, damage, injuries, and infections, just like the adults in the party.
  • In the dream after sleeping inside the Tower of the Endless, if you enter a certain area in Rondon, you'll be treated to a child crawling desperately from the shadows, only to be pulled back in and eaten alive by Pocketcat, with no trace of either of them afterward.
• Deity of Human Origin:
  • The New Gods, who were a group of humans called The Fellowship who used Ma'habre's power to ascend to godhood. Unfortunately for them, their power was limited compared to the Old Gods, and they were still doomed to grow weak and die. The Fellowship’s members grew conceited and cynical, trying and failing to gain more power as the centuries passed.
  • In Ending A, The Girl becomes the God of Fear and Hunger. Unlike the New Gods, her power rivals that of the Old Gods, and she uses this power to advance humanity into the modern era.
  • In Ending C-2, Le'garde ascends to godhood and becomes the Yellow King, a deity which returns to the mortal world and unites Europa's warring nations through bloodshed. However, like the other New Gods, it is implied that his power does not truly match that of the Old Gods, and he will eventually fall like the others.
  • In Ending D, the player character becomes a New God and chooses the way they will rule over the world during the coming centuries.
• Dice Roll Death: The "Coin of Judgement" can cause these.
  • There are multiple enemies (including the dark priests, the Lords of the Flies, the Skin Granny, and the Yellow King) which can use abilities that force the player to make a coin flip during battle. Failing the coin flip will result in an instant game over, unlike other enemy special attacks that "merely" deal lethal amounts of damage on a failed coin flip.
  • Should the player attempt to read the Necrononicon ("ancient book"), they must pass a coin flip without being able to use their Lucky Coins. Failing to do so will result in the player going mad and dying.
  • The two groups of masked cultists, Bunny and Wolf, both invite the player characters to take part in their rituals. If you choose to accept after the first "safe" offer, failing the resulting coin flip means that your character is unable to break out of the ritual's hold and eventually becomes another mindless reveler.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Played with. Out of all the New Gods, only Nilvan and Nas'hrah are unable to be killed; Nas'hrah because he's just that powerful, and Nilvan because she never appears to the player in the flesh. Out of the Old Gods, however, Gro-goroth, having left the world long ago, cannot actually be fought; only a fragment of his true self is fought, and said fragment merely kills the player after they battle it. The God Of The Depths is less "defeated" and more "killed while it's helpless and dormant", Sylvian simply lets the player go after attacking them, and the God of Fear And Hunger, like the Traces Of Gro-goroth, merely kills the player after their battle.
• Disc-One Nuke: Dash, which makes you move much faster, saving up on food and Mind-restoring items, along with making it easier to run away from enemies. You can get it in character creation by choosing to go straight to the dungeon, despite it being one of the better skills. Unsurprisingly, Termina removes the skill and replaces it with a universal Sprint Meter that depletes very fast when spotted.
  • By starting with Cahara and selecting the backstory option that gives you the Steal skill, you can steal the Scroll of the long sword from Ser Seymor, which teaches Leg Sweep. Leg Sweep immediately destroys all doors in the game that you can get into combat with...including the door which holds the Miasma, one of the most powerful weapons in the game that would normally require beating the Crow Mauler (an extremely dangerous and powerful optional boss) to access. You can also use Leg Sweep to break down the shortcut door in the Prison that leads directly to the floor where Le'garde is being held, and equip him with the Miasma as he is the only character who can use it with no downsides.
• Downer Ending: Many. Only one of the endings is unambiguously good, and even then it takes a lot of suffering to happen.
• Driven to Madness:
  • Most of the prison's guards went mad from the darkness emanating from the dungeon, with most either turning on each other or being slaughtered by the monsters deep within.
  • Trortur, the prison's torturer, was driven mad even before being assigned to the prison. He was captured, tormented, and disfigured by an enemy army, giving him a sick obsession with causing harm.
  • Rudimer, the prison's captain, met a similar fate as he attempted to marshal his men against the dark forces. He eventually fled into the darkness, becoming the deadly Crow Mauler.
  • The player character can go mad and get a Game Over if they run out of sanity, fail a coin flip when reading the ancient book, or achieve ending B.
• Earn Your Bad Ending:
  • To get Ending A, the player must escort The Girl (a very weak character) all the way to the end of the game, including through several difficult boss fights and a punishing gauntlet full of traps and enemies. Should they succeed in this, The Girl will transform into the God of Fear and Hunger, one of the hardest bosses in the game. Winning the fight results in a special ending where the player's party dies anyway, having created and released an embodiment of human suffering with power rivaling the Old Gods into the rest of the world. Not so much of a bad ending for the rest of humanity, however, as while no one else remembers you, she does and carries your kindness in her, elevating Mankind to new heights with meaningful strife through powers that rival even the old gods.
  • Ending C-1 happens if the player chooses to fight the ascended Le'garde rather than submitting to him. They will need to defeat the Yellow King, a boss which can do massive damage each turn and has a chance to instantly kill the player every three turns. Succeeding in this, the player characters will escape the dungeon, but will be haunted with dreams so terrible they're eventually unable to differentiate them from reality.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: The characters' S-endings, which can only be accomplished on Hard mode and are very difficult to accomplish. However, they have the happiest results for each of the characters involved. And within these endings, the ones for Enki and Ragnvaldr are the hardest to achieve, but are unambiguously happy, compared to the bittersweet endings for Cahara and D'arce that can be achieved much faster.
• Eldritch Location: There's something ominous about the Dungeons of Fear and Hunger that prove they're more than just a prison, not the least of which is how the ever-present darkness drives those who dwell in them for too long to madness and physically turns them into monsters. The fact the location has been a nexus to multiple planes of existence likely has something to do with it, as does how it continues to have trace amounts of influence of the many gods that have existed throughout history lurking within its halls.
• Emergency Weapon:
  • Characters who are disarmed (typically due to losing arms) can resort to punching, though the damage is low.
  • Enemies who lose their arms will typically resort to tackling, usually doing lower damage than their standard attack and without being able to dismember or inflict status effects.
• End of an Era: While the new era varies depending on the ending, the game takes place at this time. You also directly end the era as well.
• Equipment-Based Progression: There is no leveling up or experience to gain. Killing enemies does not in any way improve your characters. The key to becoming more powerful is to acquire better gear alongside spells and items to add further utility.
• Establishing Series Moment: Right at the very entrance of the Dungeon of Fear and Hunger: If you linger around the entrance too long, you'll hear barking in the distance; stay any longer, and a pack of hounds will arrive and (likely) rip you to pieces, and not even the main entrance of the dungeon will save you from them. Sounds almost unavoidable... but if you use a side entrance into the dungeon, the hounds will not follow you in. Welcome to Fear and Hunger. Everything wants you dead, but if you take time to explore and use knowledge of the game, you might just stand a chance.
• Even the Old Gods Have Standards: While attempting to "show love" to the little girl would prompt that such cannot be done, the game will respond with a "Really!?" should you try it with the Demon Kid. Attempting to do so afterward will have the game tell you with absolute disgust that the gods themselves do not approve of your way of life, abruptly ending the game, but not before telling you that you suddenly feel pressure in your groin area.
• Everyone Is Bi: D'arce being the only female party member one can "Show Love" to makes more or less all playable characters (except D'arce) this. Taken into account when "Showing Love" itself, as all characters seem to engage in anal sex when doing so. Though, this may be something of a subversion, as when the majority of the characters are asked to show love within a magic circle, most of them express extreme reluctance, with the game making it clear that the only reason most characters are only willing to engage in sexual intercourse is because they see "marriage" as their only means of surviving the dungeon. And that, coupled with the fact that D'arce is the only female within the group (and may very well refuse to take part), makes this more a case of Situational Sexuality. This is not the case with Cahara, however, who canonically has had sex with men and women even prior to coming to the dungeon, and is downright enthusiastic to engage in sex for "marriage" purposes, making him the one canonical bisexual.
• Evil Weapon: The Miasma, which bares a striking resemblance to the bloodthirsty Soul Edge, which will gradually drain the sanity of whoever wields it but grants them immense power.
• Failed State: The kingdom of Rondon is heavily implied to be one of these, marred by extreme urban poverty, bandits and brigands, cults centered around the worship of ancient gods, and an unnamed plague sweeping through its borders. And that's not even mentioning the darkness which has rooted itself in the dungeons of Fear and Hunger, massacring the kingdom's few soldiers and placing everyone in danger of the monsters and madness lurking within.
• Fake Difficulty: Openly and unashamedly; it's a huge part of the intended experience. The game will cheerfully stomp you to death at even the slightest excuse, often for reasons that are absolutely in no way your fault (most frequently bad RNG, given the number of factors controlled by the Coin of Judgement).
• Fan Disservice: Nudity and sex are ubiquitous in the game. Nearly all of it, however, involves dead bodies, graphical violence, rape, and/or Body Horror.
• Fantasy Gun Control: Though set in Alternate Universe 1590, with many hallmarks of the Late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, firearms are entirely absent. Explosive vials do exist, however, which are nitroglycerin-based grenades.
• Fearless Undead: A large perk of having undead party members is that they're immune to stress, meaning they’re much lower-maintenance to keep around than human followers.
• Flaw Exploitation: Can be done during the boss fight with Francóis, the Dominating One to great effect. Specifically, taking time in combat to belittle the freshly-ascended New God, insinuate that he's an Unwitting Pawn, and replying to his demand for elaboration by simply mocking his ignorance of the bigger picture will cause them to become very visibly agitated to the point of passing up to three turns' worth of combat as he futilely demands that you name this supposed puppetmaster if you're so sure of your 'absurd' theory.
• Game-Breaking Bug: Crashes are somewhat common, occurring every so often, which is very problematic because you can't save on Hard.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: Ending B has you witness the true form of humanity. Your body breaks down and shuts off bodily functions simply to try to cope with it, which ends up killing you.
  • Reading the Necronomicon has a chance to cause a similar thing to happen, depending on the Coin of Judgement.
• Groin Attack: You can target the phallus of some enemies, particularly those that have a particularly pronounced one, like the Prison Guards. Cutting it off has all sorts of effects; sometimes it'll cause the enemy to lose its balance, costing it a turn, and sometimes it'll deprive it of very deadly attacks.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • The game does not initially tell the player what status effect symbols mean, leaving them to guess blindly until they're able to find an in-game medical textbook that Randomly Drops. Since many status effects can cripple a character or lead to their untimely death, this can cause some unexpected Game Overs. Many players simply decide to consult the wiki for answers.
  • Some items have multiple uses that aren't all readily apparent. For example, the player can be prompted to use a Red Vial to dissolve the lock on a door, but there's no prompt telling them that it's just as effective at dissolving enemy eyes in combat.
  • Applies to some of the S endings. For example, one of them requires you to beat the game with Le'garde in your party... except this is on hard mode, so he begins the game deceased. And no, casting Necromancy doesn't work.
  • If the player reunites Buckman and Seymour, then speaks with them, you'll later find them amalgamated into a horrific monster deeper in the dungeon, preventing their quest from being progressed further. The player actually has to ignore Buckman and Seymour entirely when they've been reunited, which isn't at all apparent to players trying to complete their quest.
• Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: While The God of Fear and Hunger needs to be mechanically defeated in combat in order to progress and view Ending A, successfully doing so is followed immediately by it instantly and effortlessly killing the rest of your party and incapacitating your character, before killing the latter as well in short order.
• Heads or Tails?: Known as the Coin of Judgement, one face depicting a human head and the other a sigil of Gro-Goroth. Outcomes of certain enemy attacks, encounters, some loot discoveries, and attempting to sleep at a save point are mainly determined by whether or not the player correctly calls the Coin. On several occasions, failing a coin flip will lead to an immediate game-over. The risk of this happening can be mitigated with Lucky Coins, which allow the player to flip a second coin and raise their odds of success from 50:50 to 75:25.
• Heroes Of Another Story: Another set of knights have recently ventured only to get separated and lost in various locations with one even losing his mind.
  • All 4 playable characters are exploring the dungeon at the same time, each with their own reasons for doing so. If you don't recruit the others or kill them, they'll probably end up being this.
• Holy City: Ma'habre, the city of the gods. It is the home of the New Gods, who took it over as the influence of the Old Gods waned. The player's party is able to enter it after journeying down to level 7 of the dungeons with the Cube of the Depths in their inventory.
• Human Sacrifice: You can sacrifice party members in any unused ritual circle to gain affinity for Gro-goroth.
• Humans Are Cthulhu: According to Gro-goroth, humanity has a true form determined by its thoughts and ambitions that makes it too tainted to exist in the same world of the Old Gods, and which is impossible for even humans to comprehend. Indeed, when he presents it to you in Ending B, the entire party is so utterly horrified by the mere sight of it that their bodies shut down and die.
• I Love the Dead:
  • Creating the Demon Child requires that you "use Demon Seed" on a corpse.
  • You can form Marriages with other party members, including Ghouls. Unlike other party members, Ghouls cannot refuse.
• Infinity -1 Sword:
  • For physical weapons the Claymore can be acquired extraordinarily early either by killing Ser Seymour (difficult to do on your own without losing limbs, but not impossible with the right setup or a lucky headshot) or by trading the Girl or a Demon Child to Pocketcat in the caves (which doesn't require fighting). It falls just behind the best weapons in the game, but its early accessibility makes it still worthwhile to get. Cursing the weapon makes it even stronger, and also allows you to harm ethereal characters. The only downsides are that you need two hands to wield the weapon, and cursing it requires three Soul Stones.
  • Combustion is a secret spell taught only by its unique spell scroll (or alternatively an empty scroll), but uniquely costs no Mind Points to cast. In spite of this, it does more damage than most any other spell and can set enemies on fire for even more damage. And if you give the scroll to Moonless...
• Infinity +1 Sword: The four best weapons in the game all entail unique challenges in order to claim them. Which ones are easier though depends on the luck of your playthrough, and what you're able (and willing) to pay.
  • The Eastern Sword is on average the easiest to acquire, being found in the Thicket you can access provided you find an explosive vial. Picking it up though will cause you to be attacked by the ghost of its former master, and defeating it (easily done with the sword's Otherworldly damage and crit potential) makes it the Purified Eastern Sword, which boosts its crit rate even higher. While weaker than the other options at a glance, the high crit rate lets it average out to be roughly on the same level as the others. It is also the only one of the four that can be acquired with an Empty Scroll.
  • The Miasma has exceptionally high attack and is a one-handed sword, meaning almost everyone can use it. But acquiring it can be tricky though, as you either need to have someone with Leg Sweep (which can instantly break down any door)... or get the key by killing the Crow Mauler. While there are strategies that can deal with the Crow Mauler relatively safely, taking lasting damage from the fight is all but inevitable and you'll be at the mercy of randomized item drops as to whether you're even equipped to kill it.
  • The Blue Sin is a powerful sword on its own, though it falls short of the above-mentioned weapons. No combat is necessary for it though, just a Passages of Ma'habre book to escape the mine collapse triggered by pulling it out of the ground. It can then be made stronger as the Cursed Blue Sin, which also sets enemies on fire for damage-over-time... but you need four spirit stones to do so, the most of any weapon.
  • Lastly, the Sergal Spear can be found inside Ma'habre, requiring a sacrifice of four arms to access. This is twice-over a steep cost, as recovering limbs is next to impossible and the weapon requires two arms to use anyways. Those that do find a way though will be well-rewarded, as the spear has a higher attack value than anything else in the game. It's also one of the few weapons usable by an Abominable Marriage.
• Informed Equipment:
  • Characters retain the same look no matter what gear you give them. This is especially notable for Marriages, who will walk around the dungeon stark naked for the remainder of the game, even if you deck them out in a full suit of plate armor. There is one exception: the Penance Armor. Putting it on changes both the character's sprites and portrait to reflect them wearing it, and because it can never be taken off, the changes will be permanent.
  • All of the protagonists carry a knife, which they will use to kill themselves with. You can't actually equip it, however.
• Item Crafting: Certain items can be crafted from various components, including torches and valuable healing potions. The player needs to find their respective crafting recipes to do so, though.
• Kill the God: It's possible to defeat not one but several Gods of the world to obtain several endings, going beyond your goal of simply finding a man. For the Old Gods, you can defeat (the traces of) Gro-goroth and if you go for endings C or D, an update made it so you fight Sylvian, though she merely lets you go after enough damage is done to her. As for the New Gods, all of them can be defeated except for Nilvan.
• Last-Second Ending Choice:
  • Ending C allows you to choose between submitting to the Yellow King and fighting him, which alters the ending you get.
  • Ending D has you choose answers to two questions right before getting it, which greatly set the tone it takes.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Shields function as armor with their own slot, which is disabled for characters that are missing an arm or wielding a two-handed weapon.
• Made of Plasticine: Crippling an enemy's arm will always cause them to lose it, even if you're using a blunt weapon. Meanwhile, the player's party members can easily lose arms, even if they're attacked with a relatively weak weapon (such as Cahara's scimitar).
• Magikarp Power: The shortbow. It is a fairly weak weapon, but finding Iron Arrows and obtaining the Marksmanship skill allows the arrows fired in the overworld to kill most enemies instantly, including a handful of bosses that serve as wandering enemies. Bows are exceptionally rare though, and the only guaranteed one in the game is if Ragnvaldr chooses to start with one.
• Maximum HP Reduction: Certain enemies' attacks can inflict the "broken bones" status effect on a character, reducing their maximum hit points permanently.
• Merging Mistake:
  • A group of guards attempted to form a Marriage to empower themselves, but instead merged into a massive, deformed pile of body parts called the Human Hydra. It asks the player character to feed it children, and if you oblige you receive no benefit.
  • Buckman and Ser Seymour will attempt to form a Marriage if the player talks to them when they regroup in the basement. The Marriage doesn't go well, and the two mutate into a hideous, non-functioning being.
  • Downplayed with the Abominable Marriage, the result of a player character Marriage incorporating a third party member. It's in a lot better condition than the above examples, and it's entirely mobile & competent. You're completely capable of achieving the game's endings as an Abominable Marriage.
• The Modern Gods: The New Gods, particularly a group of four known as the Fellowship, are mortals who ascended who desire to spread their influence over the world and maintain their divine power in place of The Old Gods, despite their relative lack of strength compared to their predecessors.
• Monster Modesty: Averted. The unabashed nudity of the Guards is an early indication that this is not your typical RPG. Furthermore, the fact that said Guards are among the earliest enemies speaks volumes regarding how far down into Psychosexual Horror that Fear and Hunger will delve.
• Multiple Endings: There are many endings denoted by letters that one can get from the game from E to A, and S endings for each character on Hard Mode. Ending D has four different versions as well, which change depending on your answers.
  • Ending A: The player character, accompanied by the mysterious redheaded child, climbs into the God Of The Depths body, where they find a mountain of corpses within a mysterious dark void. She proceeds to, after looking into the darkness, undergo a horrifying metamorphosis, culminating in her transformation into the God of Fear And Hunger, who proceeds to attack the player character. After the player character (seemingly) defeats her, they collapse, later reawakening in a dark field (suggested to be "the bottom" of the dungeon), unable to even stand. The God of Fear And Hunger has a brief, one-sided discussion with the player character, remarking that the darkness of the dungeon can be used to create something new. The player character proceeds to pass away, and the God of Fear And Hunger, who rivals the power of the Old Gods, proceeds to transform the world and send it into an age of cruelty, albeit one with meaningful strife which elevates mankind to new heights; all thanks to the actions of the player character.
  • Ending B: The player character, unaccompanied by the redheaded child, climbs into the God Of The Depths' body, finding a mountain of corpses within a mysterious dark void... where a being identical to the Old God Gro-goroth emerges and attacks the party (instantly incinerating Nas'hrah, should he be present). After a grueling battle, Gro-goroth reveals himself to be a mere remnant of the true Gro-goroth, who, along with the other Old Gods, left the world after seeing that humanity could not understand them. Gro-goroth proceeds to reveal glimpses of humanity's true form to the player character. Upon doing so, the player character's sanity vanishes and their body immediately shuts down, and they die, having accomplished absolutely nothing of value or worth.
  • Ending C: Accompanied by Le'garde, the player character defeats Francois The Dominating. Le'garde, wishing to use the power of Francois's throne to become a god who can save the world from bloodshed and violence, sits upon it, becoming a New God. The player character sits on the throne themselves, tracking down Le'garde in a strange, monster-filled world. Le'garde, proclaiming himself to be a god who will lead the world to paradise, offers the player mercy, but they reject it and proceed to kill him. They somehow manage to escape both the strange world and the dungeons, but they are plagued by increasingly realistic dreams of the dungeon's horrors, eventually reaching the point where the character goes mad, unable to distinguish their horrifying dreams from reality.
  • Ending C-II: The player tracks down Le'garde in the monster-filled world; however, when offered mercy by him, they accept and kneel before him. Le'garde makes good on his offer, using his new power to free the player character from the strange world, where they are able to return to civilization, having accomplished essentially nothing of value. Disturbed from their experiences, the player character becomes a recluse. Eventually, they hear of Le'garde as well, and hear tales of him unifying civilization with abilities that seem practically supernatural. Decades later, with Le'garde having become the Yellow King, they catch a glimpse of him once again, noticing that, though he looks just as young as he did when they first met, his skin has become a sickly shade of yellow, colored by the green darkness of the strange world.
  • Ending D: The player character defeats Francois The Dominating, without Le'garde. They proceed to sit on his throne, ascending to godhood themselves. Depending on options taken immediately afterwards, they may turn out to be an obscure god who is killed and succeeded, a fierce god who becomes the sole remaining god in a world trapped in the iron age, a merciful god whose religion manages to (eventually) save society, or a dark god who comes to be forgotten.
  • Ending E: After locating Le'garde (alive or dead), the player character unceremoniously leaves the dungeon through the way they came… however, as they leave, they note that they are still able to feel the dark and oppressive atmosphere of the dungeon. They take one final look at the dungeon to confirm that they truly did escape; however, they see themselves, still in the dungeon, showing that escaping the dungeon isn't as simple as they thought.
  • Ending S: "The True God of Fear And Hunger". This ending is only available if the Knight is the player character. The knight, throughout the dungeons, finds and memorizes a mysterious spell known as "Rebirth Of The Beloved", which claims to be capable of reviving the dead. She later finds the corpse of her beloved captain, Le'garde, with his throat slit. While initially horrified, she uses Rebirth Of The Beloved in order to resurrect him; however, he returns as a horrifying monster, eager to inflict the pain and suffering he experienced in the dungeons on the outside world. The knight does not care, however, as he remains bonded to her... surely?
  • Ending S: "Happy Ending". This ending is only available if the player character is the Mercenary. The mercenary acquires a treasure map from Isayah, locating an ancient and extremely sought-after crown. He then proceeds to leave the dungeon, selling the crown for an exorbitant amount of money, which he uses to free his wife, Celeste, from her life as a prostitute. However, he proves to be traumatized by his experiences in the dungeon, and lives in fear of sleeping, convinced the darkness will take him one day.
  • Ending S: "The God of Ultra-Violence". This ending is only available if the player character is the Outlander. The Outlander finds Le'garde dead, but manages to recover the Cube Of The Depths. Instead of merely leaving the dungeons while it is still possible, he proceeds to slaughter every corrupted monster within the dungeon, collecting their souls as he does before leaving, effectively destroying the evil within the dungeon. Knowing that the same sort of monsters exist outside of the dungeon, the outlander dedicates their life to relentlessly hunting down and killing the dark monsters of the world without rest.
  • Ending S: "The Enlightenment". This ending is only available if the player character is the Dark Priest. The dark priest makes their way to Valteil, who, like him, also possesses an Enlightened soul. Valteil informs them that the path to godhood does not lead to the enlightenment that he came to the dungeons in search for, and alludes to Nosramus as one who came the closest to real enlightenment. The dark priest meets Nosramus, who gives them a Spirit Anchor. The dark priest kills Francois, sitting on his throne; however, the Spirit Anchor prevents the dark priest from ascending to godhood, and he rejects the prospect of divinity. He proceeds to take Valteil's library of knowledge for his own, becoming the strongest human to ever exist.
• Necromancer: The player can become one of these by learning the Necromancy spell (either through a Hexen table or through the Ancient Book). It allows them to revive skeletons and defeated ghouls, providing them with new allies. It's also the only way to gain party members in Hard mode.
• Noble Wolf: Moonless, a unique wolf enemy found in the cavern beneath the blood pit, can be tamed by feeding her two pieces of Rotten Meat. This allows the player to recruit her as a loyal party member, who will help attack any enemy they come across. Though she can't be controlled directly, she's useful because she can attack twice per turn.
• Non-Standard Game Over: Trying to perform a Marriage while at negative affinity with Sylvian will cause a Fate Worse than Death due to being turned into a helpless abomination.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Any time you get the chance to help or treat a non-playable character kindly will come back to bite you in the ass. The most notable example is the little girl who if you manage to keep alive will transform into the final boss and kill the player character even if they manage to win the fight.
• Off with His Head!:
  • One of the most effective ways to kill an enemy is to cut off their head. The head is generally more difficult to hit, though, encouraging the player to aim for the limbs first (or to use weapons with high accuracy, such as throwing knives).
  • The Crow Mauler can choose to use his Peck ability on members of the party, which will immediately decapitate them if it hits. He only won't do it if he's blinded.
• Older Is Better: The Old Gods are a lot stronger than the New Gods. Ending A has you aid in the birth of the God of Fear and Hunger, who is notable for being on par with the strength of the old gods.
• Ominous Music Box Tune: The Ancient City of Ma'habre in the past contains this.
• Optional Party Member: With the exception of Ending A and Ending C, all of the party members are completely optional to recruit, though it will obviously make combat harder.
• Party Scattering: Occurs upon entering the Void by sitting on the ascension throne, as everyone has apparently experienced time differently, and thus scattered all over the place. You don't have to re-recruit your party members, but doing so is a good idea for the upcoming fights.
• Permadeath: Once a party member's Body hits zero, that's the end of the line for them and they are permanently removed from the party. Nash'rah is an exception, as he's a disembodied head fueled by his own magic.
• Permafusion: It's possible to appease Sylvian, the god of love and fertility by sexual intercourse with a willing partner inside a ritual circle, fusing the player and the other party into a being known as the Marriage which has higher base stats. It's possible to fuse again with a third willing party member, becoming The Abominable Marriage, a character with the highest attack stat for any playable character, at the cost of being unable to equip any armor.
• Press X to Die: If your Mind falls low enough, the game's messages will suggest suicide to you, and you will actually unlock the skill for it.
• Prison Rape: A potential outcome if the player character is defeated by one of the non-elite guards, and should they still have their stinger intact. You'll be treated to your character taken to the prison floor to be not only raped, but also have their legs cut off afterwards, and left in the cell with only some Body remaining.
• Real Is Brown: The game has a muted color palette to emphasize the bleakness of the setting. The only time there is a Splash of Color is when Le'garde ascends as the Yellow King.
  • Averted in the Dungeon Nights mode, where the characters' image sprites give them more vibrant colors and an actual skin-colored complexion rather than the pale skin they have in the main game.
• Sanity Slippage: As you delve in the dungeons of Fear & Hunger, the mind stat of everyone in your party will gradually decrease, with certain fears causing it to drop faster. Should the player's character's mind reach 50, they will learn Suicide, and should it drop further to zero, they will end up forming Panophobia, a fear of everything. There are ways to recover Mind, in the form of not only alcoholic drinks and using a pipe to smoke tobacco or opium, but standing close to a lit candle or torch will also gradually restore mind for everyone in your party.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After you find the captain, regardless of whether he is alive or not, you can head back out through the fog where you started the journey for Ending E.
• Schmuck Bait:
  • As you explore the dungeon, you may come across what is used as a toilet, which you can jump right into. Doing so, however, leads you to falling into the pit with no way out, short of suicide or returning to the title screen. There is some unique party dialogue, however.
  • At one point in the mines, you can encounter a mysterious glowing sword embedded in the wall. Taking the sword will cause the mine section to cave in, instantly killing the player. This can be avoided by using a teleportation scroll right after taking the sword.
  • The Snake Oil Salesman (mentioned below) sure seems to be in a hurry to leave after you buy one of his items...
• Sex Slave: Celeste, the wife of Cahara (the mercenary), is indentured to work in one of Rondon's brothels. He took the contract to delve into the dungeon hoping to earn enough money to purchase her freedom, which he successfully does in his S ending.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: Ending B has you die horribly and accomplish absolutely nothing of value. This is not the worst ending, either.
• Shout-Out:
  • Silent Hill is a major inspiration for the game:
    • The Crow Mauler is a notable expy of Pyramid Head.
    • The battle against Chambara highly resembles the final boss of Silent Hill 4.
    • Valteil's name is a slight alteration of Valtiel from Silent Hill 3.
  • Nas'hrah is pretty similar to Jan from The Brain That Wouldn't Die. Magical powers, evil by normal standards but actually just lost their mind, and a disembodied head.
  • The Harvestman is modeled after a figure from the cover of a compilation of home recordings by Kurt Cobain.
  • The Black Witch is inspired by a figure from a H. R. Giger painting titled Vlad Tepes.
• Silliness Switch: Dungeon Nights is an interesting case. The above-ground segments are a lighthearted, goofy school dating sim, but the dungeon aspect of it is largely the same, though you can opt to avoid going into the dungeon at all (though you aren't likely to get a date without doing the quests there).
• Snake Oil Salesman: After some time, a merchant shows up at the dungeon's entrance, offering several healing vials for silver. All three vials are actually filled with poison.
• Soul Jar: Soul stones can be found in the dungeons. The player can harvest souls from dead party members or enemies, imbuing the stones with unique effects or even creating plot-important stones.
• Sprint Shoes: The dash skill, which any character can start with, will significantly increase your movement speed.
• Timed Mission: Once you begin your quest into the dungeons on Normal Mode, you have thirty minutes to find and rescue The Captain, Le'garde, from his cell in the catacombs. Any longer and by the time you do find him, he'll be found dead, his throat slit like a pig. Averted in Hard Mode, due to him being dead already, regardless of how fast you get to his cell.
• Treacherous Checkpoint: One of the only two ways to save the game is by sleeping at a bed; however, most of the beds in the game will force the player to flip a coin to see if they successfully save. If they fail the coin flip, not only will the game not save, the player will be ambushed in their sleep and forced to fight a dangerous enemy (or in a few cases, will be instantly killed). There are only three exceptions: the bed on Level 1 where Buckman can be found (provided Trortur has been killed), the bed on Level 3 with a statue (which can be safely used only once), and the bed in the Tower of Endless in Ma'habre.
• T. Rexpy: The Greater Blight, a giant fleshy t-rex monster found in The Void, an endgame level for endings C and D. It will constantly chase the player down, with its approach signaled by ominous messages and loud footsteps. If the player fails to hide in one of the holes around the map, it will engage them in an inescapable battle where they're almost guaranteed to die.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: Beating the game for any ending on any difficulty and waiting for the credits to end will provide the player the means of starting a High School AU Dating Sim version of the game.
• Unexpectedly Realistic Gameplay: As the player character and their party lose limbs, they will no longer be able to wield two-handed weapons or shields if they lose an arm and won't be able to equip any weapons at all if they lose both arms. If the player character loses a leg, they will lose the ability to dash if they had learned it, and movement will be reduced to a crawl if they end up losing both legs.
  • One enemy has a coin-flip special attack that can infect you with the plague. There's no effects in gameplay, because the game takes place over too short a time period for any symptoms to manifest... if they even will, since the character can't know for certain that they've even caught the disease.
  • Spiders are hard to hit because of their small size and poisonous to boot. But they're just spiders, so you can use the Talk command to choose to step on them and kill them immediately.
• Unwinnable by Design:
  • If you jump into the toilet, you will end up stuck in a deep latrine pit. There is no way out of the pit, and the game will eventually prompt you to take the easy way out.
  • Ragnvaldr's S-ending is the hardest to achieve, in part because of the several ways you can softlock yourself attempting to get it. To get the ending, you need to collect every special soul in the game, meaning you need to kill a number of unique enemies and capture their souls with Soul Stones. However, the Crow Mauler despawns if you reach Ma'habre before killing him; the Black Witch won't spawn in Ma'habre if you enter the basement pocket dimension before fighting her (and her soul can't be collected there); and it's very possible you just won't be able to find enough soul stones for everyone. This is especially frustrating because you can't save on Hard Mode, forcing a complete restart upon being softlocked.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential:
  • The player can hand over members of Buckman's party to Trortur, a sadistic torturer who'll murder them horribly for his own pleasure. Trortur will reward them for doing so.
  • The player can feed the child to the Human Hydra, for no benefit whatsoever. She can also be handed over to Pocketcat, who is heavily implied to eat children.
  • If one is playing as the Outlander, they can choose to murder Le'garde right in front of his lover, D'arce. This initiates a battle between the player and the horrified D'arce.
  • Any living, human member of the party (save for Le'garde) can be sacrificed to summon the Tormented One, resulting in them being flayed alive.
  • You can use the Bonesaw to remove any party member's limbs. Typically, this is only done in times of absolute necessity, but there's no in-game limitation besides "not having enough hands to use the bonesaw".
• We Cannot Go On Without You: If the player character's Body reaches zero, regardless of the state of everyone else in the party, the game will end.
• Wizard Needs Food Badly: The player and their party members all have a hunger stat, which must be kept at bay with foods you find throughout the dungeons. Should it reach 50 for a member, their body stat will drop by 10 and will cause them to do less damage. If it reaches 100, the character will die of starvation.
• Would Hurt a Child:
  • The monsters and denizens of the dungeons will have absolutely no compunction in attacking and even killing the girl and demon child if they're in your party. The same can even be said for the player, should they choose to sacrifice them in a ritual circle to gain affinity for Gro-goroth, selling them off to Pocketcat, or even feed the girl to the Human Hydra for absolutely no benefit whatsoever.
  • The game, however, averts sexual harm toward children. While attempting to perform marriage with The Girl, she will refuse presumably because she's a new god; the game actively refuses to let you do the same to the Demon Child and will give you a game over because even the old gods want nothing to do with it.

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FEAR & HUNGER