Hungry Horrors Review – A Roguelite Card Game of Cooking & Folklore

A Culinary Twist on Roguelite Combat

Hungry Horrors is a card-based roguelite adventure that replaces traditional combat with cooking, positioning itself at the intersection of deckbuilding strategy, narrative progression, and folklore-inspired world design. Instead of attacking enemies, players construct and refine a culinary deck designed to satisfy the cravings of mythical creatures drawn from British and Irish legend. Each encounter revolves around preparing and serving dishes that match a Horror’s unique tastes before they reach the player, reframing the usual risk-reward loop of roguelites into a system built around flavor management and timing.

Deckbuilding Through Flavor and Combos

Each Horror has distinct preferences and aversions, meaning success depends on learning what to serve, what to avoid, and how to efficiently chain flavors to maximize satisfaction before the creature’s hunger meter fills. This creates a tactical layer that blends pattern recognition with resource management, replacing health bars and damage numbers with appetite thresholds and culinary efficiency.

Roguelite Progression and Persistent Upgrades

Progression follows a permanent roguelite structure. Runs take players through a series of environments inspired by British and Irish landscapes, such as enchanted woods, meadows, and bogs, each populated with encounters, artifacts, and narrative elements tied to regional folklore.

Defeat sends players back to a central base, where they can refine recipes, unlock new abilities, and improve their overall culinary toolkit. These upgrades persist across runs, gradually expanding the range of ingredients, combos, and strategic options available. This structure encourages experimentation and replayability, as players refine both their decks and their understanding of monster behaviors over multiple attempts.

Folklore-Driven Narrative and Characters

Narrative integration is woven directly into the gameplay loop. The game’s encounters feature legendary figures such as Black Annis, Jenny Greenteeth, and Grendel, each portrayed with distinct personalities and appetites rooted in myth. Rather than serving as static bosses, these characters function as narrative nodes that reveal story details, cultural references, and thematic elements tied to hunger, fear, and folklore.

Exploration segments introduce artefacts, cookware, and spices that carry both mechanical and narrative significance, reinforcing the sense that progression is not just mechanical but also world-driven.

Visual Style, Tone, and Genre Identity

Visually and tonally, Hungry Horrors adopts a pixel art style and dark humor, reinforcing its thematic contrast between cozy cooking and looming danger. The game positions itself within the deckbuilding roguelite genre but distinguishes itself through its non-violent core mechanic and culinary framing.

By transforming combat into meal preparation and enemy defeat into successful feeding, it offers an alternative interpretation of progression and challenge that emphasizes preparation, knowledge, and adaptation rather than direct confrontation.

Overall Impression

Overall, Hungry Horrors presents a structurally familiar roguelite loop supported by a distinct mechanical twist and a strong folklore foundation. Its systems are designed around learning monster preferences, optimizing flavor interactions, and gradually expanding a culinary arsenal across repeated runs, situating the game as a narrative-driven, strategy-focused entry in the card-based roguelite space.