Appearance: Uterus are yellow mannequins swarming through the past version of the ancient city of the Gods. They are all female automata, moving with clumsy and slow gestures. The yellow body is altered by a white skeleton-like structure, especially in the torso, making them look similar to anatomy mannequins. Their breasts are exposed, while the pants are broken, highlighting the sexual nature behind the creation of these creatures. Their yellow skin is strong as iron, impossible to remove and really difficult to damage. But the most creepy detail regarding Uterus lies exactly in their abdomens. A small creature called Embryo lies peacefully in a hole in the belly. Each new turn during the combat, the Embryo will fall, grow, and will crawl toward the party (as you can see in each sliding picture). Before attacking, the Embryo will resemble more a big and fat infant, or a dwarf, but for sure is very far from a harmless baby.
Background: Valteil was a human who ascended to the role of New God of Enlightenment. He was obsessed with creating artificial life using different methods, giving life to set of automata with different functions in the Ancient City. For example, Uterus was the one designed to satisfy Valteil’s sexual desire. According to the official lore of the game, every night Valteil summoned a different Uterus to his room, for obvious purposes. It is entirely possible that the Embryo was born from the relationship between a God, Valteil, and an artificial creature, the Uterus. Probably, the true experiment behind the existence of Uterus, also judging from the name, was to generate new life from an artificial body.
Regarding the fight itself, Uterus is a very peculiar and twisted battle. While moving in the map, Uterus is really slow and easy to avoid. Also during the fight, many times Uterus would simply waste her turn to “dislocate the joints”, making only a disturbing sound. When attacking, Uterus uses her rusty claws to inflict very few damages, but usually causing infecting wound, which could lead to lost a limb due to the infection. The real treat behind the Uterus fight is the existence of the Embryo, combined with an insane amount of HPs. If the arms of the Uterus are easy to cut, making her virtually harmless, the creature will continue to fight even without a head. When the Embryo will start to crawl on the battlefield, a creepy and pressuring invisible timer will crawl inside the player’s mind. What this horrible thing will do? How many turns before it will do something? Each new turn, the Embryo will get closer, while crying in a terrifying and disturbing way. Both Uterus and Embryo have a really huge amount of HPs, making them almost impossible to kill early-on in the game. After an intense crying, the Embryo attack will surprisingly not damage the bodies, but will directly harm the mind of the characters, inflicting a huge damage. A simple attack of the Embryo could send a character completely crazy. Uterus is a really interesting and creepy creature, with an intense fight based on concluding it really quickly to avoid going insane. Uterus is an enemy that is better to avoid.
Fear & Hunger (F&H) is a dark and mature RPG, with a strong horror and survival component. The grim world of F&H is definitely a mature experience, dealing with strong topics to create one of the most dark fantasy experiences. F&H is a wind of fresh air in the world of indie RPGs, especially in terms of morality and horror integrated in both lore and design. More information regarding the game can be found in my review.
What surprised me the most is that Fear & Hunger was practically created by just one person: Miro Haverinen. I had the possibility to talk with him regarding F&H, knowing more details about his creative process and his future ideas. Miro kindly answered to all my questions and, if you are interested in knowing more details about F&H, below you can find the complete interview.
Q1: Fear & Hunger is an original RPG with a dark, mature and disturbing setting. How the idea of Fear & Hunger was born?
A1: The original idea was born during my school studies few years ago. In our class we had this tradition of asking random (like truly random) questions from each other. During one class I started asking one of my classmates what he would do in these different morally awkward scenarios that would all happen in a morbid dungeon. The scenarios would continue for a while and more and more people got involved. In the end it started to take a shape of a pen & paper RPG and the dungeons were named ’The dungeons of fear & hunger’.
Later on I had to scrap together some academic credits and I decided to turn the dungeons into a video game format and make a school project out of it. I even ended up writing my thesis about the game. The thesis was about the aesthetics and thematics of horror in video games and the practical part of the thesis was the first demo of Fear & Hunger.
Q2: The setting and the lore of Fear & Hunger are original and interesting. What inspired you the most while creating the game? Which are the major influences for your work and for the complex lore of the game?
A2: I was originally inspired to create a sensation of relentless darkness. I wanted to experiment different ways to evoke hopelessness and horror in a sense. I think this is more apparent in the earlier builds of the game. It has since taken more of a ’video game’ form with the later updates if that makes any sense… As for the influences, there are so many that it’s difficult to pick just few… I guess the biggest influences would be Silent Hill, Hellraiser, Amnesia, Nethack, Berserk and the Souls games. I also want to name Mortal Kombat here, because the lore of MK is really underrated in my opinion. Also the early Mortal Kombat games had a really frightening and vile atmosphere.
The way the lore is presented in F&H is obviously heavily inspired by the storytelling and the world-building of Souls games. But the lore itself doesn’t try to replicate any of those titles. It felt like the game wrote itself on its own really, which is pretty weird looking back to it.
Q3: Let’s know a bit about you, Miro. What did you work before focusing on Fear & Hunger? Were there other videogames/projects before this one or you worked in a completely different field?
A3: Ah, well… I did play around with game developing when I was really young. I found game engines like the RPG Maker and Game Maker among others, but I couldn’t really concentrate on any single project for long and most of the games I made back then died within few weeks or months. I did release a couple of game demos back in the day but unfortunately I don’t have them anymore.
Eventually I drifted away from game development, thinking that there was no future in playing around with simple 2D graphics. Funny enough, right after I quit, the indie gaming exploded so it wasn’t necessarily the best move at the time. Later on I got into graphic designing and I really wanted to make art. Graphic art, music or whatever. There are some album covers around with my art and also some light graphic novels in which I took part. I didn’t really consider game development until I had to get those academic credits from somewhere. I decided to revisit RPG Maker as it was the engine I was the most familiar with. Then people seemed to like the early versions of the F&H and after the first Let’s Plays of the game I was hooked. With games I could fuse together all my interests in different art forms and it was very rewarding to see the immediate reactions Let’s Players had with all the things I had created.
Q4: Which are your favorite videogames?
A4: I have a deep love for Souls games. Demon’s Souls especially awakened something inside me. Also the first three Silent Hill games have a special place in my heart. I’ve never felt the same kind of dread as the 10-year-old me felt with the original Silent Hill. Other than those, I’d say Final Fantasy VII, Ocarina of Time and the original Resident Evil 2 are probably my favourite games of all time. It’s a pretty boring and obvious list haha. Maybe I should throw some more obscure names here too? From the top of my head – A Blurred Line, Legion Saga 2, Devil May Cry 3, Seiken Densetsu 3 and Lost Planet 2 are all cool.
Q5: Fear & Hunger is a really mature game, including sex and gore. In my opinion everything is not gratuitous and it adds darkness to the world, but I was curious: was there something that you deleted from the final release because you considered it too mature or dark?
A5: No, not really. Every time I felt bad about making some things I figured I was on the right path. If it created a repulsive feeling in me, it had to have an effect to people playing the game too. There were some things removed though, but not because they were too dark or mature, but because I felt they took the game more to the meme territory. Like for example the ’Stinger thrust’ attacks of the guards originally caused – erm – …different bleeding statuses during the combat. It was a bit too silly. The status ailment is still in the game, but it’s not too frequent now.
Q6: Personally, I love the monsters of Fear & Hunger, both in terms of design and for the unique battles. Which is your favorite monster and why?
A6: I really like the Skin granny [Figure 1]. Her design is really cool and menacing I think and on my playthroughs she is always one of the more intense fights. If you miss some of the attacks on the first turn, things can go south really fast. Also I think the very first enemy most people run into, the guard [Figure 2], is really the best enemy as far as the gameplay balance goes. In general I’m really happy with the way designs ended up too.
Q7: Developing a videogame could be complicated and many ideas often are cut from the original plan. What was an idea you wanted to implement but at the end was cut from the actual game? A creature or boss fight?
A7: Seeing as I still keep updating the game, I can’t say any of the features were really cut from the game really. They could just be waiting for the future updates! But originally I planned that in the place of the Salmonsnake boss fight [Figure 3], there would’ve been a random variation to the boss fight with a tentacle monster instead. I thought it was a pretty cool idea to go to the lengths of making randomized bosses too. But since that fight is optional to begin with, I felt that that the time it would have taken me to make that functional would be better spent elsewhere. So that’s probably something that will remain cut from the future updates too. There were also supposed to be swimming sections to the game in underground tunnels, but that might be cut out entirely too. Who knows?
Q8: What was the most challenging part of Fear & Hunger development?
A8: Things have gone relatively smoothly with the development. I’d say the most challenging part has been finding the time to make the game. It has demanded so much time for the past 2 years. I really can’t recommend game development to anyone who wants to keep on to their other hobbies and social life haha.
Q9: Fear & Hunger can be a really challenging and punitive game. During the testing, which was the monster/trap that killed you the most? I am talking about something that you really hated yourself, and maybe you also ended up fixing a bit for how much difficult it was.
A9: I didn’t really hate anything during the test runs. Otherwise I would have removed those elements entirely. If I die on my test runs, it’s usually within the opening hours and the cause is the guards. They can be pretty punishing if I go about too carelessly.
The boss fight of the Ending B was originally meant to be hard mode only, but since I could never beat the boss on my test runs, I changed it so that the boss appears in the normal mode as well. I can’t really think of other things… But I’ve changed many things according to the feedback I’ve gotten from the other players though.
Q10: Miro, what is your plan for the future? Are you planning to add contents to Fear & Hunger, or already thinking/developing a new game or a sequel? I would be curious to know some details, if for you is ok.
A10: I’ll continue updating Fear & Hunger to some extent. It has still been my priority, but I’ve also started to plan and make some early work for a follow up game. After the next update I think the priority will shift more towards the next game. So yeah there will be a ’sequel’. But it’s going to be different. I’m not sure if all the people agree with the direction the next game will take, but I feel like I want to make something a little different for a change of pace. And some details? Hmmm…. The game will use the same lore, but won’t be a direct sequel per se. Although it is going to follow one storyline F&H set up already.
Acknowledgements:
I would like to thank Miro for the friendly talk and for his cooperation. I will curiously wait for more news regarding the future of F&H. I would like also to remember the Fear & Hunger is available at itch and STEAM.
Fear & Hunger is for sure the darkest RPG ever made, set in a dungeon without morality and full of horrors and brutality (you can find a complete review in my other blog Dark RPGs: Fear & Hunger a journey in a land without morality). The enemies are grotesque and creepy foes, and even the […]
Fear & Hunger is for sure darkest JRPG I ever played, full of gore, sex and torture; surely for a mature audience. The game is the JRPG equivalent of the board game Kingdom Death, especially for the dark themes and the heavy atmosphere. The sense of dread is incredible, every corridor or choice could bring you to a terrible death, behind any path could be a treasure or a horrible creature. Should I enter in that well? What would happen if I join the orgy of people with bunny masks? Every choice could bring to a really horrible death. For example during my first hours I died of hunger in a s****y well (literally), and I was tortured to death by a mad doctor. In a land without morality everything is allowed, from sacrifices kids to murder your party, or cannibalism. But nothing here is gratuitous, everything is well integrated to build a believable dark environment where everything is allowed to survive.
The combat system is quick and brilliant, turn-based fights focused on dismembering the opponent. Dismember fast your enemies, understanding which limb is the most dangerous, and finish the fight with less damages possible is the best way to survive. An enemy is wielding a threatening giant mace? Cut his arm and avoid heavy damages. This is implemented in a very clever way, for example zombies can fight till be dismembered, while a head-shot for humans is lethal.
Here the injuries are deadly, and it is also possible to lost limbs or even eyes permanently. Without an arm the character cannot use heavy weapons or shield, while losing the legs will make the player dragging around his body through the dark corridors of the dungeon. It is obvious to say that these permanent debilitation will make the game almost impossible to complete, and loading a save would is the best option. With this in mind, the fighting in Fear & Hunger is far more stressful, brutal and dangerous than in any other RPGs, and should be avoided. There are no random encounters, experience and level up, for this reason fighting should be the last resource. It is true that if almost any enemy can be avoided, some of them are bringing very interesting weapons or tools. In this case, fighting them quickly could bring to interesting benefits.
The game is direct to a mature audience. Seriously! Game Over scenes could involve your character being raped to death, tortured or mutilated. In this dark world, sex, nudity and cannibalism are everywhere, together with madness and an uncomfortable touch of necrophilia. Worth to specify that nothing of these is gratuitous, light-hearted or integrated in a pleasant way, but it is focused on creating a dark and mature experience above the limits of morality. And it works, creating one of the darkest environment, which will scare, make you feel uneasy and questioning your own limits on how to survive.
Since in the game there is not experience, to learn new skills it is necessary to find specific book, or to use the souls collected from dead enemies to unlock them. The skills are usually character-specific or related to an Old God. To learn the abilities associated to a God, it is necessary to improve the relationship with that related god by doing specific acts in its name. Of course since the universe of Fear & Hunger is a dark place, to worship the Old Gods you can make human sacrifices, have sex or eat another human. This is reflected also on the skills that could be learned, from Necromancy to something called Dark Seed, which is better to don’t describe.
Fear & Hunger is a difficult but rewarding experience. The feeling of finally advancing alive and healthy in the dungeon is really satisfying. There is always some trial and error, but build in a conscious way, where an extended knowledge in the dungeon and in its deadly surprises will allow to understand how to avoid unneeded dangers. Anyway, this is an unforgiving game, where every error will punish and the odds are against the player. The loot system and many drastic decisions are based on a coin flip. Can this be unfair? Surely yes, especially when the coin rule can give you 50% possibilities to save or die, or make you lost crucial loot. Also the game will hide many mechanics, allowing the player to discover everything, but implying lot of trial and error and some searching in the web. Luckily the community is very active, and there is also a well done official wiki of the game.
During the tough descend in the belly of the dungeon, few characters can also be recruited in the party. But this is no an easy task, since the rules to recruit them are complex and the characters could be lost forever without knowing. For example, a dangerous wolf can be recruited by feeding it rotten meat, an immortal magician would speak with you only if a talisman is equipped, while another character can be saved only by reaching him quickly. Another topic is the use of spells, such as Necromancy, which are able to generate ghouls as allies from dead bodies. The secondary characters are interesting both for personal story and for use in combat. Some of them are impossible to control directly and will attack following their instinct. For example, I found very interesting how the wolf tend to focus its attacks on the legs of the enemies.
The atmosphere is pure nightmare inducing, full of disturbing creatures and evilness. A crow like entity will murder you if you sleep in his bed, while a giant ball made of heads will ask to sacrifice children to him. The monsters are original and creepy, from pregnant mannequins, to dismembering dancing wizards and old women fused with an ancient sewing machine.
The game also embraces darkness with many choices. Will you sacrifice your team? Will you kill to please the old gods? The game is opened to replayability, with the possibility to select between 4 different characters with its own skills and abilities. Each character has also a prologue, with different paths, which will define the starting abilities and equipment for each class. Abandon your friends to certain death? Your mercenary will learn Backstab. Put the temple on fire? The dark priest will learn Pyrotrick.
The lore and the setting is really complex and interesting, with a believable and unique mythology, far from the usual “inspired by Lovecraft” so common to many horror indie RPGs. Every monster, character and location is clearly part of the same universe. Sylvian for example is the goddess of love, but her love become twisted and people having sex in her name… well will not spoil the surprise. A very bizarre merchant will offer the player very powerful equipment in exchange for… children. Dedicated players will be rewarded with a deep knowledge of the world by reading books, or typing questions directly to the New Gods.
The art-style is simple but gorgeous, especially the monsters and the environment. Also the sound effects add another level of deepness, with disturbing noises and atmospheric music. The dismembering and the animations during the fights are also very satisfying.
This is a demanding and challenging game, sometime unfair and not for everyone. But if you are searching a unique JRPG, really dark and horror, with a complex and rewarding system, you should really give it a try.
Dark RPGs 