Draft:Fear & Hunger

Fear & Hunger is a roguelike role-playing game/survival horror developed by Finnish Miro Haverinen (also known as orange~) and published by Happy Paintings made with the RPG Maker MV engine. The game was released on December 11, 2019 exclusively for Microsoft Windows via Steam and Itch.io.

A dark fantasy RPG targeted at adult audiences, the game is notable for its extremely dark tone and its use of heavy subject matter and shock value as it contains explicit depictions of graphic violence, gore, torture, rape, nudity, suicide, self-harm, body horror, and cannibalism, as well as implications of pedophilia.

Fear & Hunger is followed by a sequel called Fear & Hunger 2: Termina, which was released on Steam and Itch.io on December 9, 2022, nearly four years after the first game's release.

Gameplay
The game has various JRPG, dungeon crawler and survival horror elements akin to Final Fantasy, Diablo, and Resident Evil respectively. Players have to rely on phobias (which decreases the character's evasiveness and increases enemy damages on them depending on his/her phobia) and hunger (which debuffs the character until they die from starvation if not treated). In the overworld, players have the ability to fire arrows at enemies or set up bear traps to either deal heavy damage to or immobilize enemies.

In battle, players can attack any of the enemies multiple parts, with some of them being dismembered and/or decapitated if enough damage is taken. Certain enemies have attacks that can cause negative status effects such as poison, confusion, or burn to the player or their party members, as well as unique status effect not normally found in other RPGs, such as parasites (which depletes hunger faster), broken bones, arm/leg loss (which is also done by amputating the player's self or their party members with bone saws), decapitation (instant death), infection, or anal bleeding (from being sexually assaulted by certain enemies). Unlike other RPGs, there's no level-up system in this game.

The game also features a heads-or-tails coin flip mechanic, both in the overworld and in the battle, that determines the outcome depending on the coin's side and the player's situation.

Depending on which god they worship, players can acquire new abilities through the Hexen table, which is also used to upgrade weapons into powerful cursed variants. If their affinity with Sylvian is high enough, players also have the option to perform "the Marriage of Flesh" with a few party members at the ritual circle by having sex with them until their bodies merged together. Doing so removes negative status effects.

The game has three difficulty settings: Fear & Hunger, Terror & Starvation, and Hard Mode (which serves as the game's permadeath mode). It also has an unlockable dating sim mode called "Dungeon Nights".

Plot
Fear & Hunger is centered around either of the four playable characters, which consist of the Mercenary (Cahara), the Knight (D'arce), the Dark Priest (Enki), and the Viking-inspired Outlander (Ragnvaldr), entering and exploring the Dungeons of Fear and Hunger set on a fictional continent of Vinland. Each character has their own purpose in the game's story.

The game has 10 different endings, including the two variants of Ending C and the four character-specific endings.

Development
Miro Haverinen developed the game as the director, writer and did most of the assets except for animations and the intro theme, the latter of which is a royalty-free music track composed by Kevin MacLeod. He states that he made the game inspired by Silent Hill and NetHack, and that the game's music is inspired by Silent Hill composer, Akira Yamaoka.

Reception
Despite not receiving scores from critics, Fear & Hunger received positive reception from gamers, garnering a "Very Positive" score on Steam. The game was praised for its story, character designs, challenging gameplay, and dark tone, but criticized coin flip mechanic (even when saving in certain areas), the quiet volume of the game's music, some technical issues, and semi-frequent typos and grammatical errors.

Despite the amount of shock value and triggering content, the Fear & Hunger franchise gained a cult following and became mildly popular in the RPG and horror gaming community. The phrase "the stinger is pulsating", from the battle with the guards, quickly became an internet meme for use in comments to pornographic fan art of this game.

Fans also made various mods for the game to make the experience easier for other players, as well as fixing the game's typos and grammar errors and removing rape scenes.

Sequel
A sequel, called Fear & Hunger 2: Termina, was released for Microsoft Windows via Steam and Itch.io on December 9, 2022.

Almost unrelated to the prequel, Termina takes place in a fictional town of Prehevil during the 20th century. The game's title name and the presence of a hostile moon is inspired by The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. Much like its prequel, the game has several graphic scenes and mentions of heavy subject matter.